4 days ago
Baltimore Sun Hall of Fame 2025: Stuart O. ‘Stu' Simms, lawyer and leader
How do you get difficult things done?
Stuart O. 'Stu' Simms has a theory on that. The onetime Baltimore state's attorney, former secretary to two Cabinet-level state agencies and partner at Brown, Goldstein & Levy boils it down to this: It's about getting the right people in the room.
Oh, that doesn't mean it's going to be easy or fast. You can expect a lot of different ideas and personalities. But if you can get people who know their stuff, who genuinely seek to solve problems and not promote personal agendas, the 74-year-old Harvard Law-trained lawyer says, the resulting conversation can put you on the right road.
An example? Years ago, Baltimore Police regularly had big backlogs of arrestees. The legal community wondered: Why not locate a court to review bails next to the jail? Some people in the judiciary balked. But thanks to Simms and others advocating for that reform, eventually it happened —and it helped. 'You have to come to the table and be open to some solutions,' Simms says. And that is a philosophy that has guided his career.
Simms, now retired, may be remembered as one of the most successful — and perhaps most low-key — leaders in public safety that Maryland has seen over the past 40 years. Colleagues say his quiet competence commands respect. University of Baltimore President Kurt Schmoke, who chose Simms as his deputy when he was Baltimore state's attorney, traces it back to Simms' days on the gridiron. The Harlem Park native was a fullback and star at Gilman School and then Dartmouth College, where he started three years and helped lead the school to three straight Ivy League football championships.
'He was willing to take those tough jobs like running back,' recalls Schmoke, himself a former star quarterback at Baltimore City College in the same mid-1960s era. 'In his professional life, he demonstrated the same kind of determination as he did as a distinguished athlete in high school and the college level.'
But Simms' outlook wasn't just forged on the playing field; it was also shaped by his turbulent times: the late 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement as Black men and women sought to redefine their place in this country. It would have been easy for the son of a steelworker father and public schoolteacher mother to question authority. But he also found inspiration during his senior year at Dartmouth: While on a fellowship in Atlanta, he was introduced to Maynard Jackson, the lawyer and civil rights leader who in 1974 would become the city's first Black mayor. He ended up working for him for almost a year.
'It was a life-changing experience to work with him,' Simms recalls. He considered postponing law school; Jackson told him not to wait. He was needed on the playing field of public service and the law. He was needed to be a change-maker.
After Harvard Law, the U.S. Department of Justice eventually beckoned. Simms spent four years there as a prosecutor, gaining trial and investigative acumen. He recalls those days as 'challenging' but enjoyable, learning from the talented courtroom rivals who advocated for criminal defendants. Then came his days as deputy state's attorney in Baltimore, only to find himself promoted to the top job when his boss was elected mayor. Simms was elected state's attorney in 1990 and reelected in 1994. In 1995, then-Gov. Parris Glendening came calling, hiring him first to run the Department of Juvenile Services and in 1997 to serve as secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, one of state government's most challenging assignments.
'If ever I was in a foxhole fighting a war, I'd want Stu there with me,' said U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a Baltimore Democrat who has known Simms for 45 years. 'He has a strong sense of commitment and dedication. And he has a moral compass we don't always find these days with people.'
It is notable that those two agencies have been immersed in much controversy in recent years but not so when Simms was running them. Indeed, the fact that his name was rarely in the news may have worked against him when he ran a hastily arranged campaign to be Maryland attorney general in 2006 and lost the Democratic primary to Montgomery County State's Attorney Douglas F. Gansler.
'Decency. That's the word that suits Stu,' said Larry Gibson, the longtime Democratic organizer and law professor who managed his political campaigns. 'He is an intelligent, decent, productive person. Not someone who seeks limelight or has a large ego.'
In more recent years, he's also someone who has been supporting many civic and professional causes, serving as chief counsel to Maryland Legal Aid and on the boards of the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Gilman and others. In 2022, he lost his beloved Candace, his wife of 49 years. They first met in high school and developed a lasting bond in college. He is a father of two and grandfather of two.
His hope for the future? That others will look to do the right thing and not spend time 'thinking about the damn headlines,' as he was once told by his coach at Gilman. 'I took the job seriously,' he says. 'I wanted to do the right thing.'
Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@
Age: 74
Hometown: Baltimore
Current residence: Baltimore
Education: Gilman School; Dartmouth College; Harvard Law School
Career highlights: Staff counsel to U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes; assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland; Baltimore state's attorney; secretary of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice and the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services; partner, Brown, Goldstein & Levy; Maryland Legal Aid chief counsel
Civic and charitable activities: University of Maryland School of Law advisory board; board member for Baltimore Museum of Art, president of the Baltimore Educational Scholarship Trust and past board member of Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, Gilman School, Sinai Hospital, St. James Episcopal Church, United Way of Central Maryland, Baltimore Community Foundation, Associated Black Charities and the Baltimore NAACP
Family: Wife Candace died in 2022; two sons; two grandchildren
