Lighting a Fire

Andrew Dansicker still remembers the case early in his career that pulled him from the trenches of document and discovery reviews and into the trial spotlight. But it didn’t involve a high-paying client or a corporate legal battle. It was a fight over a farmer’s barbecue grill.

The farm had been in the family for generations. When police found marijuana stashed in a barbecue grill on the property, they seized not only the drugs but the entire farm under Maryland’s forfeiture laws at the time. 

“It just seemed fundamentally unfair,” Dansicker recalls.

Working through the ACLU of Maryland, Dansicker took on the matter, trying to find some way to argue against it. He dug into the state constitution, and developed an argument that seizing the farm amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. He appealed the case all the way to the Court of Appeals of Maryland, where he delivered his first-ever appellate argument. 

“I was a third-year attorney, arguing a case in the highest court, and there was a lot of press there. It was wild,” says Dansicker. 

His favorite part of the court appearance came when a justice asked the state’s lawyer if it wouldn’t have been more reasonable to seize the barbecue grill, to which the attorney said no. 

“Then that led to all kinds of other questions, like can you seize a $90,000 Mercedes during a traffic stop because there’s a $20 joint in the ashtray? And of course, the attorney said yes, because they didn’t have another option that was consistent with their argument,” Dansicker recalls. “But the judges thought that was ridiculous, so we ended up winning the case.” 

As a thank-you, the farmer invited Dansicker to visit the property and, more than once, sent him farm-fresh deer jerky. 

“I’ve always said, if I don’t enjoy what I do, I won’t keep doing it.”

The experience lit a fire. As he continued to learn the ropes at big firms like White & Case and Venable, Dansicker continued handling pro bono matters. A memorable one was a civil rights case involving high school students in Talbot County. After a principal heard rumors of off-campus partying, he ordered a group of students to submit to drug testing in the school auditorium. 

“They were forced to take a urine test on the stage,” he says. “It was outrageous.”

Dansicker filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the students, arguing violations of their privacy and due process rights. After a mediation session that stretched late into the night, the dispute was resolved with what he calls a “very reasonable settlement.” Even more remarkable, the principal agreed to personally apologize to each student—something Dansicker says clients ask for all the time but rarely receive. 

Dansicker eventually launched his own firm and narrowed his focus to employment law. These days, pro bono cases are rarer, but his sense of service hasn’t faded. 

“Clients come to us after they’ve been to lots of other lawyers who have basically told them, ‘We’re going to charge you a $5,000 retainer, and it’s going to be $500 an hour.’ We take some of those cases on a low bono or contingency basis when other lawyers won’t. We’re taking a risk, because we think it’s an interesting issue.”

One recent example: Dansicker represented several University of Maryland students after an employee they had accused of sexual harassment was fired and subsequently sued the students. “These were young adults without much money being sued for millions of dollars, so we charged a very low amount to represent them,” says Dansicker. The lawsuit was dismissed in federal court last year. 

Using a similar fee structure, he has also successfully represented legal interns and clerks at major Baltimore firms who were fired after rejecting the advances of senior attorneys, with those disputes resolved in confidential settlements. Other related work has included supporting employees fired shortly after cancer diagnoses, workers bound by questionable noncompete clauses, and staff denied accommodations for disabilities. 

“I’ve always said, if I don’t enjoy what I do, I won’t keep doing it. But employment law is very rewarding. You’re helping people protect something second only to their family—their job.”