Leonard H. Shapiro

Leonard H. Shapiro's firm is located in the Owings Mills area of Baltimore County. His practice is devoted exclusively to the defense of criminal cases in the District and Circuit Courts of Maryland.

He graduated from the University of Maryland Baltimore County campus and graduated from the University of Baltimore School of Law Cum Laude in 1974.

He was an Assistant State's Attorney for Baltimore through 1984 at which time he entered private practice. He is a long time member of the Board of Directors of the Maryland Criminal Defense Attorneys' Association and is a member of the National Criminal Defense Attorneys' Association.

Mr. Shapiro has presented seminars, lectures and demonstrations in the area of criminal defense. He is a frequent instructor for the Maryland Institute for Continuing Professional Education of Lawyers and has co-authored several books for that organization dealing with the defense of criminal matters. He is rated AV by Martindale Hubbell, the highest rating that they give lawyers and in the March 1995 edition of the Baltimore Magazine was selected as one of the best criminal lawyers in the Baltimore area, pursuant to a poll conducted within the legal community.

Marie Fischer Cooke is a criminal defense attorney and associate in Leonard H.Shapiro's office. She also handles personal injury cases and represents respondents in guardianship matters.

Ms. Cooke went to Goucher College as a returning student and mother of two young boys and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, also earning the Calvin Prize in history. She won a fellowship to the University of Maryland School of Law from which she graduated in 1985. She was a member of the Moot Court Board and went on to clerk for the Honorable John J. Bishop in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. She also was an interim law clerk to the Honorable Elsbeth Boothe in the Baltimore City Circuit Court where she completed the term of the clerk who had to leave early.

Ms. Cooke worked for the Public Defender's Office from 1991 until 1995 representing indigent defendants. In 1995 she left the Public Defender's Office to work in private practice with Mr. Shapiro's firm. She is a member of the Maryland Criminal Defense Attorneys' Association, Maryland State Bar Association and former chair of the PR/Speakers Committee of the Baltimore County Bar Association.