This February, Brown, Goldstein & Levy recognizes Black History Month and pays tribute to the generations of Black Americans who have challenged inequality and injustice through the legal system.
Our firm has been dedicated to fighting against racist systems and attitudes since our founding in 1982. Founding partners Chris Brown and Dan Goldstein pursued this commitment by bringing civil rights litigation, including a series of Voting Rights Act lawsuits that brought the first Black politicians to local elected offices across Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Fair Housing Act cases against landlords that denied apartments to Black tenants, and cases on behalf of children poisoned by lead paint—a persistent and endemic problem in Baltimore that has had long-standing and harmful effects on the Black community.
BGL’s work continues through lawsuits challenging discrimination in housing, employment, and education, demanding law enforcement accountability through civil rights litigation, and seeking justice for those who have been wrongfully convicted.
BGL attorneys represented a Maryland Legal Aid attorney who was detained by a deputy sheriff following a court hearing for “lawyering while black,” and won an arbitration award of more than $250,000 on behalf of a Hooters server fired from her job because of Hooters’ racially discriminatory image policy—both cases that received national attention. We also obtained 4,400 vouchers and mobility counseling, worth over $1 billion, to enable Black families to move from public housing and other segregated areas of Baltimore City to communities of opportunity throughout the Baltimore region. Currently, we represent the National Fair Housing Alliance and fair housing groups across the country in a lawsuit against Bank of America and Safeguard Properties Management, LLC, for maintaining foreclosed-upon homes in white neighborhoods in better condition than those in Black and Latino neighborhoods.
We stand with those working tirelessly to dismantle structural racism and the pervasive mistreatment of the Black community.