Martino Law

Martino Law I assist in family law cases focusing on agreements, financial cases, and mediation. I am an attorney with over 25 years of experience.

If you are going through a difficult time, I can be a stabilizing force to help you get out of your situation. I am diligent and conscientious. I do not grandstand or play upon your fears. I will be honest with you about your legal matter, and I will be honest when dealing with the court and the opposing side, but I will always advocate for your interests. In advocating for your interests, keep in

mind that a judge will tune out if he or she believes that we are not being reasonable, so it is paramount that we prepare a strategy that has a chance to be successful. In developing a strategy for your case, we will realistically discuss the prospects of your case, even if it means telling you something that you do not want to hear.

08/14/2026

Three words in your settlement agreement decide how you enforce it later.

A Maryland agreement can be incorporated into the divorce judgment "but not merged." The agreement becomes part of the order, and it survives as a contract, so you keep both remedies.

Merge it, and the contract disappears into the judgment.

Most people sign this paragraph without reading it. It is the paragraph that matters when the other side stops paying. What does yours say?

08/14/2026

Can I stop paying child support when my child turns 18?

Usually yes. Not automatically. The distance between those two answers is where people get into trouble.

Maryland's guidelines define a child as someone under 18, or someone who has turned 18, is still enrolled in secondary school, and has not yet turned 19. That is the endpoint the statute sets, and for most families it lands somewhere in a senior year rather than on a birthday.

The paperwork is a separate question from the duty. An order and an earnings withholding do not switch themselves off, and no payroll department knows your child graduated. Whatever the underlying obligation has become, the machinery keeps running on the last figure a court entered.

An order covering more than one child is where this gets expensive. It does not drop by a third when the oldest ages out, because the guidelines are not linear. The correct figure for two children is not two-thirds of the figure for three. That number comes out of a recalculation, not out of arithmetic anyone can do at the kitchen table.

None of this runs on a standard timeline, and what your own order says about termination matters more than any general rule. Have a lawyer read it well before the date you are counting on.

08/14/2026

The Supreme Court will decide whether parents can get through the courthouse door.

International Partners for Ethical Care v. Ferguson came out of Washington State, where parents challenged laws letting minors obtain certain care without parental consent. The Ninth Circuit never reached the merits. The question the justices took in June is "standing."

Petitioners' merits brief is due on September 8th, with argument this coming Term.

A right nobody has standing to defend is not much of a right.

08/13/2026

Federal suppressor registration just ended for thousands of gun owners. The Justice Department chose not to fight it.

Since 1934, the National Fi****ms Act has required buyers of suppressors and short-barreled rifles to register them and pay a $200 tax. The 2025 reconciliation bill cut that tax to zero.

On August 5th, a federal judge in Texas ruled that the cut was fatal. Registration was always an exercise of congressional taxing power. With no tax left to collect, the paperwork regime lost its constitutional foundation.

The government had seven days to appeal. The deadline passed yesterday. The injunction took effect this morning. It is limited to the plaintiff organizations and their customers.

Was the $0 tax fair play, or did it cross a line?

I wrote about the federal drug-user gun ban in Hemani: https://bit.ly/4ejEPpa

08/13/2026

A Maryland appellate opinion can decide your case, but it may count for nothing in a similar case in the future.

Rule 1-104 says an unreported opinion is not precedent. One issued on or after July 1, 2023 can be cited for persuasive value, but only if no reported authority adequately addresses the issue. Sign it per curiam, and even persuasive value is off the table.

Same court, same judges, same reasoning. Citable or not by designation.

Lawyers, is that a rule you can defend?

08/13/2026

My ex remarried. Does the new spouse's income count for child support?

No. A stepparent's income is not part of the child support calculation.

Maryland's guidelines run on the actual income of the two parents. A new spouse is not a parent and has no support obligation to your child, so what they earn does not go into the formula. This is true in both directions, which is the part people forget when they are the one who remarried.

What can matter is indirect. If the remarriage changes a parent's own financial picture in a way the guidelines actually measure, that shows up. A case above the guidelines gives the court discretion rather than a table, and there the household circumstances of each parent are part of the picture a judge sees.

The other common version of this question is the new baby. A parent who has another child later can raise that, and there is a specific way it enters the calculation. It is not automatic, and it does not erase the existing obligation.

If your ex's standard of living changed and your support number did not, the honest answer is that those two things are not as connected as they look. Modification runs on a material change in circumstances, and a new spouse's paycheck is usually not one.

08/13/2026

Maryland does not automatically give you ninety days' notice before your child moves away.

The court can order it. Section 9-106 lets a judge require ninety days' written notice of an intended relocation as a condition of a custody or visitation order.

Once notice comes, you have twenty days to file, and the hearing goes on an expedited track.

Read your order before you need it. What does it say?

08/12/2026

A constitution that bends to recency bias is not a constitution.

Virginia's Supreme Court struck down a redistricting amendment in May after voters had already approved it. However, the General Assembly had acted while a general election was underway in violation of the law.

Maryland's own redistricting amendment is now in court over a missed certification deadline.

I wrote about the Virginia decision here.

https://bit.ly/4dQt614

08/12/2026

The Supreme Court of Maryland answered a jurisdictional question in July that decides whether a District Court protective order case gets one appeal or two.

Walston v. Lindsay, No. 38, September Term 2025, filed July 17th. Opinion by Justice Booth. A father obtained an interim, then a temporary, then a final protective order in the District Court against the mother on behalf of their child. The mother noted a de novo appeal to the circuit court. While that appeal was pending she asked for and received two continuances, and the circuit court entered an intervening protective order each time to hold the position.

She then tried to appeal further, to the Appellate Court of Maryland. The theory was that entering those intervening orders was an exercise of the circuit court's original jurisdiction, which would take the final judgment outside section 12-302(a) of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article and open a second appeal.

The Court rejected it. Issuing an intervening protective order during a pending de novo appeal did not convert the circuit court's role from appellate to original, and no additional right of appeal followed. The judgment of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County was affirmed.

The practical lesson is unglamorous and expensive to learn late. In a District Court protective order case, the de novo appeal to the circuit court is where the record gets made and where the case usually ends. Try it as though there is nothing after it, because most of the time there is not.

08/12/2026

What did you want to ask your lawyer and never asked?

Clients tell me months later that they sat on a question because it sounded stupid to them. It never is.

Ask it out loud. Your lawyer has heard it before.

What was yours?

Address

1997 Annapolis Exchange Parkway, Suite 300
Annapolis, MD
21401

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Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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+14107778043

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