Gary C. Norman, Esq., was inspired by his late mother, Mary Ann Norman, his father, as well as by his friends, to be dedicated to community service. Norman has encouraged others around him to contemplate issues more deeply and to find ways to strive to improve the quality of life and opportunity of fellow citizens. His wife and his partner, a guide dog, a retriever named Pilot, have been a constant source of support and guidance during every moment and at every milestone achievement.
An attorney and mediator, Norman holds licenses in Ohio and in Maryland and is the founding principle of Norman Access and Conflict Resolution Consultants Group, a firm that provides a range of legal and non-legal services. He is a Commissioner of the Maryland Commission on Human Relations.
Serving as the Chair of the Animal Law Section of the Maryland State Bar Association, Norman is also leading the second 2011 MSBA animal law symposium that will take place at the Maryland State Bar Association on April 8, 2011. For information about the conference, visit www.msba.org.
He is the Immediate Past President of the Maryland Area Guide Dog Users, Inc., an advocacy and education based non-profit that he established. In that role, he organized the blindness community concerning issues of access and civil liberties, rights and responsibilities.
He has served on numerous other boards, including, but not limited to, At LAST, Inc., the Maryland Assistive Technology Cooperative.
He is an alumnus of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland, Ohio, and Wright State University, Dayton Ohio. Norman is a 2011 candidate for a Master in Letters of Law (LLM), with Specialization in Health Law, of the Program on Law and Government at the Washington College of Law, American University, Washington D.C.
He is the recipient of myriad accolades, including, induction into the hall of fame at his high school, as well as the 2009 Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from Wright State University.
Additionally, in September 2009, he received a prestigious national award, the likes of which, Elvis Presley, Vice President Chaney, and President John F. Kennedy, have been the recipients. At a ceremony in Florida, he was honored as one of Ten Outstanding Young Americans.
He is a well-published author and is a noted speaker. For instance, he is the author of his first book chapter, The Disabled, Service Animals, and the Law, in Litigating Animal Law Disputes: A Complete Guide for Lawyers (2009). His chapter, which is one of several in the work, provides an overview of service animal law.
Norman is an active mediator on the rosters of the Federal Sharing Neutrals Program at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and the Federal Executive Board, through which he mediates, for the Social Security Administration.
His interests are in mediation as relates to disability law and policy, and mediation and its connection to older adults, many of whom, because of the onset of age, may have conditions or impairments rising to the level of disabilities. Likewise, he is interested in the application of ADR to resolve healthcare accessibility issues. He is consequently studying at Wash. College of Law, in the Program on Law and Government for a post graduate degree, L.L.M., to study these issues.
Norman is a voracious reader, and, as such, is also an author, whose writing, focuses, on among others, disability law and policy. He has a forth-coming book chapter on the law of service animals that will be published in an American Bar Association book on the law of animals. He also has two forth-coming articles that will be published in the Encyclopedia of American Disability History.
His favorite persons with whom to share his time are his supportive wife, his friends, and most of all his wonderful guide dog Pilot and his retired guide dog Langer.