About Sheila Durant, Esq.

Biography

Practicing law is a lot more than rules and regulations. It takes stamina, patience and care. It requires insightful, thoughtful and sometimes brutal honesty.

After 46 years of actively practicing law publicly and privately, Sheila has focused the majority of her practice on small business development growth strategies, bankruptcies and occasionally consulting on medical malpractice and premises liability cases.

Before becoming an attorney, Sheila programmed the first trust program in the U.S. for computers and participated in the development of the first credit card — now called MasterCard — for Maryland National Bank. She followed that with four intense years enforcing discrimination laws for the Baltimore Community Relations Commission.

After earning her Bachelor's in Sociology from Morgan State University in 1975 and her law degree from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1978, she began her legal career as Assistant to Staff Counsel at the newly formed National Football League Players Association in Washington, DC, handling all professional football injury grievances. She also assisted in forming the National Soccer Players Association.

Returning to Baltimore, Sheila spent the next 40 years periodically serving under four mayors in the Baltimore City Solicitor's Office on labor law, real estate, general litigation and civil rights — while practicing general and small business law privately in Baltimore City and Salisbury. During this time she joined the American Arbitration Association's first class of Leon Higginbotham Mediators and served in leadership within the ABA's Fidelity and Surety division. Before her public retirement in 2022, she served 16 years as Senior Counsel to the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, the 5th largest housing authority in the U.S.

Sheila also served as a Commissioner on Maryland's Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and as an Equity Master in the Circuit Court for Wicomico County. Showing her diversity, she graduated from the prestigious Repperts Auction School, where she presented on bankruptcy considerations, and holds an Indiana auctioneer license.