Five years ago, at age 88 and recovering from heart surgery, the powerhouse attorney began considering the inevitable: a time when The Law Offices of Peter Angelos would be left without Peter Angelos.

Angelos — who operated the firm without partners — considered, then rejected leaving 49% of it to three long-serving lawyers. But as he weighed what to do with the downtown Baltimore practice, renowned for winning billions of dollars in awards and settlements for victims of asbestos and tobacco, the clock ran out.

“The man who had built a legal empire was suddenly incapable of managing it,” according to a new court filing by one of his sons, Louis Angelos. “His disability created a vacuum which threatened not only his plan for the future of the firm but also the interests of thousands of clients.”

Filling that vacuum is an intense family fight playing out in Baltimore County Circuit Court over what to do with the ailing family patriarch’s assets, among them, two institutions in town: the law firm that became a hero to steel mill and shipyard workers, and the city’s Major League team, the Orioles.

On Wednesday afternoon, lawyers representing Peter Angelos’ wife and two sons will meet for a status and scheduling conference to sort through the multiple lawsuits, motions and demands that have been filed in their dispute over his vast fortune.

The battle within the prominent yet private family erupted in June, when Louis Angelos, 53, sued his brother and mother. He claimed John Angelos, 55, the Orioles CEO, was “plotting” to take over his father’s assets and was confusing and intimidating their mother, Georgia Angelos, 80, into going along with him.

Georgia Angelos responded with a suit against her younger son, saying he had sold the law firm to himself in an act of “financial elder abuse” against his now 93-year-old father.

In a response filed Tuesday, Louis Angelos, who had been managing the firm, dismissed that claim, saying that he acted to save the practice. With Peter Angelos incapacitated, the law firm needed to be transferred to licensed attorney and as the only lawyer among the three of them, that would be him, Louis Angelos’ filing argued.

According to her suit, Georgia Angelos wants to sell both the Orioles and the law firm. And in fact, she has retained Goldman Sachs and Jones Day for investment banking and legal services, respectively, in connection with selling the Os, her suit revealed.

Louis Angelos’ suit intimated that should his brother succeed in consolidating his power over the team, he could move it to Tennessee where he and his wife have a home and music management company — something John Angelos has repeatedly denied.

Louis Angelos’ suit also said that his brother had thwarted efforts for a sale of the Orioles, which had drawn the interest of “one highly credible group of buyers.” Sources have since told The Baltimore Sun that while John Angelos is open to selling part of the team, he would like the family to keep a majority stake in it. A document filed as part of the legal proceedings says the family has about a 61% interest in the Baltimore Orioles Limited Partnership.

Georgia Angelos’ suit also claimed her husband never intended for his law firm to outlive him, and that she was working with family friend Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the distribution of more than $7 billion to victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, to sell the practice. Feinberg had identified a potential buyer, according to her suit.

In his filing, Louis Angelos disputes that his father wanted to dissolve the firm, calling it his “greatest achievement” and saying they had discussed plans for what the firm would do as the litigation it was best known for, asbestos, wound down.

As Louis Angelos relayed in a text in May 2020 to his mother, quoting his father, “You can make money ($1Mbucks a year he would often say), and when he was in a good mood, which he usually was, relatively speaking, when discussing this subject, he would give me a knowing look, raise his eyebrows, and say, ‘and not have to do very much.’ Dad said this to me maybe hundreds of times.”

While the filing is directed against Georgia Angelos’ suit, Louis Angelos targets his brother in much of the response, characterizing him as someone obsessed with “hoarding” wealth, unlike their father. Peter Angelos, according to his younger son, often kept people on the payroll of the Orioles or the law firm even if they only offered marginal benefits.

Louis Angelos quoted a message his brother sent him in September 2019, saying he needed to “stop concerning yourself and the business with which poor employees are terminated, which vendors are paid, and other items wholly unimportant to the bottom line.”

The legal turmoil comes at a critical time on both personal and public fronts. Long one of the state’s most prominent and powerful figures, Peter Angelo has been incapacitated by failing health for several years.

The Orioles, who have not had a winning season since 2016, are in the midst of a surprising run for a playoff slot as a yearslong rebuild is finally paying off. The team is approaching the final year of its current lease on Camden Yards and continues negotiations with the Maryland Stadium Authority with much at stake — including up to $600 million in state bonds to upgrade the 30-year park.

Much of the back-and-forth in court documents has dealt with what the family patriarch himself intended — or at least, what family members say he intended — for his assets. How that will be settled remains to be seen.

As Louis Angelos’ filing noted, “Disease has silenced Mr. Angelos.”

This article will be updated.

()