Law School Adjunct, and 1982 University of Maryland Carey Law Alumnus, Judge Robert A. Gordon, sat on the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland for fourteen years. He is a passionate and engaged teacher and learner of the law who has almost 40 years of experience as both an attorney in private practice and on the bench as a bankruptcy judge. Before his judicial term began in June 2006, he was regularly engaged in private practice for two decades at Maryland law firms where he tried hundreds of disputes in bankruptcy courts in this region, other federal districts, and in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, representing all stakeholders in adversarial and insolvency matters. He has also tried numerous commercial litigation matters in the state courts of Maryland and appeared before the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on at least 6 occasions.
Judge Gordon has long been active in the community, developing and managing the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland’s Debtor Assistance Project, designed to contribute free advice to pro se debtors, contributing to the Maryland State Bar Association's Lawyer’s Assistance Program, which helps legal professionals with substance abuse and mental health challenges, and serving as a leader and panelist in the federal judiciary’s national bankruptcy diversity program. He was also the first Treasurer for the Maryland State Bar Association’s Bates/Vincent Foundation, a sister organization of the Lawyer’s Assistance Program, and served in that role for 15 years. He frequently participates in educational programs as a panelist, including teaching his national bankruptcy judge colleagues, and has been active in community service organizations throughout Maryland. In addition to being a professor at Maryland Carey Law, Judge Gordon coached the school’s team in the Duberstein Moot Court Competition, the nation’s elite bankruptcy moot court competition, and has served as a judge in the annual Myerowitz Moot Court Competition.