Edmund Eisenmeier, 88, remembers his first job as a cameraman for a Baltimore television station in the late 1940s. He was making the going rate, 75 cents an hour, and he says, with a hint of pride, "You know, I saved money out of that."

Eisenmeier, who retired in the 1970s, kept putting money away, paid off his mortgage, dabbled in the stock market - and built a nice savings for himself and his wife, Alvina, and son, Joe. And he was doing pretty well, he says, until he hired a Harford County lawyer named Thomas J. McLaughlin to protect those assets when his wife had to move to a nursing home.

"I was thinking, 'I'm leaving all that to my son, and he'll have a real nice nest egg.' God, he won't get a cent," Eisenmeier said yesterday, sitting in the living room of the three-bedroom rancher in Carney he bought new in the 1950s for $13,000.

Today, he's looking at mortgaging his house to pay the nursing home that sued his family for $150,000 after he followed McLaughlin's legal advice and stopped paying most of each month's bill.

The Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland has filed a petition seeking McLaughlin's disbarment for violating his professional duties in collecting more than $200,000 in fees from the Eisenmeiers and other Maryland families. He was hired to protect assets to help them qualify an elderly relative for Medicaid but never did the work he was hired to do, according to court records.

A Harford Circuit Court judge has forbidden the Aberdeen attorney to practice law, using new rules that allow judges to act quickly when lawyers are found to pose a possible threat to others.

Complex cases

McLaughlin said previously that the cases are complex, and that he is retaining an attorney to represent him.

Joe Eisenmeier, 45, who lives across the street from his parents, said he found McLaughlin in the Yellow Pages; other clients heard his ads on Christian radio stations. Eisenmeier and his father turned to McLaughlin for help in 1999 when it was clear that his mother, a longtime secretary to former Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, would not be able to live at home after suffering strokes and showing symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

McLaughlin was impressive, Edmund Eisenmeier said. "He was the most knowledgeable person you'd want to meet. He really knew what he was doing."

And, he said, McLaughlin specialized "in geriatric people."

"He did," said Eisenmeier, with a smile. "He hooked them all."

McLaughlin said he charged his clients 25 percent of what he thought he could save them through asset protection, with a limit of $40,000. He charged the Eisenmeiers $40,000.

McLaughlin said he drew up a strategy to transfer some of the couple's assets according to Medicaid guidelines. Methods he used in the case were the same he had used on other occasions, and they had been "approved by DSS," he said. The Baltimore County Department of Social Services reviews Medicaid applications.

But when he submitted an application in 2000 to qualify Alvina Eisenmeier for Medicaid, the department rejected it. He appealed, and advised his clients, as is common practice in these cases, that "it was their legal right not to pay" any more than her $400 a month Social Security check, he said.

But that was a fraction of the $4,000 a month due to Holly Hill Manor on Stevenson Lane in Wiltondale, where Mrs. Eisenmeier remains.

2-year Medicaid review

The Medicaid review process "went on for more than two years," said Millard Cursey, Holly Hill administrator. He said such cases usually take about 60 to 120 days in his experience.

So the nursing home sued the family, and won in March.

Cursey said McLaughlin "was difficult to get ahold of," and the nursing home finally felt it had no recourse but to sue.

"It was the court's belief that he was not doing what was needing to be done - that's why we took it to court, and obviously the court agreed with us," Cursey said.

Once the suit was filed, he said, McLaughlin "did not come to court on several occasions."

McLaughlin said yesterday that he had to miss some appointments because of health problems, including one March 29, the day the judgment against the Eisenmeiers was rendered. He said he was in frequent contact with the nursing home's lawyers, and that the case "was ugly."

The family's decision not to appeal the nursing home judgment was "unwise," he said.

"They settled this case out of fear," McLaughlin said.

Eisenmeier, who in retirement performed magic shows for Baltimore County schoolchildren, said he had built up assets in stocks and savings that are "completely gone."

"He was a moderately wealthy man before this all started," said Joe Eisenmeier. "It has been disastrous for everyone involved, both financially and emotionally."

Bentley, a 2nd District congressional candidate and former member of Congress from the district, said: "I think it's very, very sad."

She said she got to know the Eisenmeiers in the 1950s on the set of WMAR's The Port That Built a City and a State, which Bentley wrote and produced. Eisenmeier was the cameraman and his wife assisted him.

Alvina Eisenmeier went on to work for Bentley until the late 1960s.

Bentley offers help

Bentley said she has offered to help her longtime friends with "whatever they want."

She said she spoke once with McLaughlin on the telephone.

McLaughlin is no longer representing the Eisenmeiers, but said he tried to help. He outlined numerous hours of work and free consultations he said he gave the Eisenmeiers.

Still, he said, if in the end the Eisenmeiers don't benefit from the work he started, "I owe them my fee."

When asked if he could pay the fee, he said: "Can I pay them now? No. If I am allowed to continue practicing, ... I will be able to pay off all the bills, and would feel obligated to."

When asked whether he believes he will have an opportunity to practice again, he said, "Yes, I do."