Mr. Belgrad is an experienced negotiator who represents clients in family law matters. He concentrates his practice in high-asset and high-income cases involving the valuation and division of assets such as businesses, partnerships, professional practices, investments, and retirement plans. Chair of the firm’s family law practice, he also negotiates ante-nuptial agreements and serves as a mediator and arbitrator in family law cases. Mr. Belgrad emphasizes the use of negotiations to resolve most family law disputes in order to avoid protracted and expensive litigation. His family law clients have access to the experience of firm attorneys who concentrate in business law, tax law and estates and trusts as related to their cases.
Mr. Belgrad is a past recipient of a Leadership in Law Award from The Daily Record, the Benjamin L. Cardin Public Service Award from his alma mater, the University of Maryland School of Law, and recently was named a "Human Rights and Justice Champion" by the Maryland Legal Aid Society. For several years, Mr. Belgrad has been cited by The Best Lawyers in America and Maryland Super Lawyers in the practice of family law and alternate dispute resolution (mediation/arbitration).
Administrative and Employment Law
Mr. Belgrad’s skills as a negotiator are the result, in part, of his practice in administrative law. In the public sector, as Chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority from 1986 to 1995, Mr. Belgrad was directly involved in:
- Negotiating the long-term lease between the Maryland Stadium Authority and the Baltimore Orioles Baseball Club;
- Developing the lease and financing package that was the prototype for the agreement with the Baltimore Ravens;
- Representing the Maryland Stadium Authority before the Maryland General Assembly in the enactment of legislation that established the organization, duties, and authority of the Maryland Stadium Authority, the financing of the twin-stadium project, and the selection of Camden Yards as the site of the stadium complex;
- Negotiating the contract and agreements for acquisition of the public and private property that constituted Camden Yards; and
- Negotiating contracts with the concessionaire, architects, consultants, engineers, and contractors who worked on the project.
Mr. Belgrad continues to represent clients before government entities, including the following:
- Bid protests before the Board of Estimates of Baltimore City;
- Legislative hearings before committees of the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate as an advocate for the client’s position on pending legislation; and
- Administrative hearings involving zoning cases, contractor qualification, and minority business enterprises.
Mr. Belgrad has also developed an employment law practice that concentrates on the negotiation of severance and retirement agreements for senior executives at public institutions and major corporations in the private sector.
Leadership
Mr. Belgrad has served his profession and community with distinction. He has served as President of the Junior Bar Association of Baltimore City, President of the Bar Association of Baltimore City, President of the Maryland State Bar Association and as the Maryland state delegate to the American Bar Association, a member of its House of Delegates, Board of Governors, the executive committee of the Board, and the ABA Fund for Justice and Education. He also chaired numerous committees and sections and is currently a member of the Council of the ABA Family Law Section and the ABA Commission on Civic Education in the Nation's Schools. He also was President of the Maryland Legal Services Corporation and chaired the State Ethics Commission for seven years preceding his appointment by Governors Harry Hughes and William Donald Schaefer to chair the Maryland Stadium Authority. Mr. Belgrad is a member and has been an officer of the Board of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center from 1997 to present.
Since 2005, Mr. Belgrad was selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® in the fields of Alternative Dispute Resolution, Commercial Litigation, and Family Law Mediation. (Copyright 2010 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, S.C.) Mr. Belgrad was named the 2012 Best Lawyers' Family Law Lawyer of the Year in the Baltimore community. Mr. Belgrad also was named by Maryland Super Lawyers magazine as one of the top attorneys in Maryland for his family law practice. He has been listed in Maryland Super Lawyers magazine since 2007. Mr. Belgrad is AV® Peer Review Rated – the highest possible peer review rating from Martindale-Hubbell.
Prior to joining Tydings & Rosenberg, Mr. Belgrad was a special assistant City Solicitor for Baltimore City responsible for labor and education (1964-68), and then a private practitioner for more than thirty years as a partner at Kaplan, Heyman, Greenberg, Engelman and Belgrad, which merged with Tydings & Rosenberg in 1998.
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