Brown, Goldstein & Levy, partner Joseph B. “Joe” Espo was named to the 2021 Lawdragon 500 leading plaintiff employment and civil rights lawyers guide for employee and civil rights litigation, including disabilities. The guide, which selects attorneys based on rigorous research, nominations and journalistic vetting, honors top lawyers across the United States who have devoted their careers to representing workers. The selection recognizes extraordinary achievements in cases involving discrimination and other civil rights matters, wage and hour violations and individual employment claims. Joe was previously designated as one of the 500 leading plaintiff employment and civil rights attorneys nationally by Lawdragon for 2020.
Joe has devoted most of his career to advocating for individuals with disabilities in asserting their rights regarding employment, housing and access to public accommodations. He successfully represented sports fans in their cases against the Washington Football Team’s (formally the Washington Redskins) FedEx Field and the University of Maryland College Park to gain equal access to all aural content at football and basketball venues. Joe won summary judgment in favor of a nurse who was rejected for a job by Johns Hopkins Hospital solely on the basis of her being deaf and has successfully represented blind college students who were denied access to communication equally effective as that offered to sighted students. Joe’s disability rights experience also includes representing clients when hospitals failed to provide sign language interpreters during the administration of medical care.
Joe has been selected annually by his peers to the Maryland Super Lawyers list each year since 2013. Only five percent of the lawyers in the state are chosen for this distinction. He also has been recognized by his peers for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America in the area of civil rights law for 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019. Joe is a board member of the Disability Rights Bar Association, a former member of the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights, a member of the Maryland Association for Justice and Trial Lawyers Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. He previously taught classes on Maryland civil procedure at the University of Maryland School of Law and classes on handling lead poisoning cases for the Maryland Institute for Continuing Professional Education of Lawyers. Before attending law school, Joe was the labor reporter at the Flint (Michigan) Journal.
Lawdragon is a legal media company that provides free online news and editorial features, including its well-known guides to the nation’s leading lawyers.
Founded in 1982, Brown, Goldstein & Levy is a 20-lawyer law firm based in Baltimore, Maryland, with an office in Washington, DC. The firm is nationally recognized in a wide variety of practice areas, including complex civil and commercial litigation, civil rights, health care, family law, and criminal defense. Above all else, Brown, Goldstein & Levy is a client-centered law firm and has decades of experience bringing passionate, effective advocacy to your fight for justice.