In her civil litigation practice, Ms. Woodward represents real estate and financial service industry clients in indoor environmental quality and consumer finance and commercial litigation; manufacturing clients in mass tort and class action product liability and toxic tort cases and emerging environmental matters; and other businesses in environmental, toxic tort, and commercial litigation matters. Through extranet technology and a focus on litigation prevention, Ms. Woodward serves as National Environmental Counsel for an NMHC Top 50 owner and manager of multifamily real estate properties. She also represents the interests of firearm owners and the industry in constitutional challenges to local and state regulations, including as counsel to 891 state legislators and elected officials on their amici curiae brief to the United States Supreme Court in Otis McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 3025 (2010) (incorporation of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, through the Fourteenth Amendment, to the citizens of the States).

Ms. Woodward is listed in Maryland Super Lawyers for Product Liability Defense Litigation, Mass Tort/Class Action Defense Litigation, and one of Maryland's Top 25 Women Lawyers; “Best Lawyers in America” for Product Liability and Mass Tort Litigation; is AV Preeminent-rated by Martindale-Hubbell; was named by the Baltimore Business Journal as a “40 Under 40” business leader; a “Legal Elite” by Smart CEO Magazine; and as one of Maryland's "Leaders in the Law" by The Daily Record. In 2010, she was inducted as a Litigation Counsel of America Fellow, an invitation only trial lawyer honor society, and invited to join the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) in 2011. Also in 2011, she was named one of Maryland's Top 100 Women, for her contributions to the legal profession, business and civic communities, and mentoring. And in 2012, she was admitted as a member of Network 2000, an invitation-only organization of business leaders dedicated to advancing and promoting the presence of women on corporate boards and in leadership positions in Maryland.

Ms. Woodward is a proven leader who uses her leadership skills to advance the interests of her clients. As President of Maryland Defense Counsel, Inc. (MDC), the statewide organization of trial lawyers who devote their practices to defending civil litigants, Ms. Woodward led the private bar's participation in the Maryland Judiciary's Advanced Science & Technology Adjudication Resources (ASTAR) in-state programs designed to prepare judges to be effective managers and adjudicators of cases involving scientific evidence and issues. Because of Ms. Woodward's efforts to educate MDC's members about ASTAR, MDC was named the “State and Local Defense Organization of the Year” in 2007 by DRI – The Voice of the Defense Bar.

EXPERIENCE

Since 2004, Ms. Woodward has represented one of the nation's largest multifamily residential developers, assisting its Eastern Division operations, maintenance and environmental team in investigating, managing, defending and resolving environmental claims at residential properties, and providing counsel on myriad legal issues impacting the client's operations and management of thousands of apartments across the country. In 2009, she implemented extranet technology to manage the client's environmental risk via a platform that reinforced the confidentiality of privileged communications between the client and counsel. Since 2010, she has served the client as its National Environmental Counsel, assisting the client in all states where it owns and manages apartment communities. Ms. Woodward was also retained to defend one of the client's limited liability companies in an alleged fraudulent condominium purchase and sale transaction; the client was dismissed from the case, with prejudice, after a motion to dismiss was filed.

Ms. Woodward represents one of the nation's largest mortgage broker companies in a class action venued in U. S. District Court, Northern District of Maryland, alleging violation of Maryland's “finder‟s fees” and consumer protection acts.