Meet our attorneys:

 John I. Heise, Jr.  |  Richard F. Stefanelli  |  Louis S. Pettey  |  Steven P. Henne
Safia S. Kadir  |  Stephen B. Jackson
 

Mr. Heise is a principal of the firm and concentrates in the areas of civil and commercial law, as well as probate and estate planning. He is a director of several corporations which maintain their principal offices in Montgomery County. During his 57 years of practice, he specialized for a considerable period of time in matters before the United States Court of Claims.

Mr. Heise is a resident of Montgomery County and has been very active in numerous activities involving the Boy Scouts of America, the Episcopal Church as a vestryman, National Training School Sponsorship Program, and he is a member of Columbia Country Club and The University Club.

Mr. Heise is active in many areas with the University of Maryland College Park. He has served as President of the Alumni Association, Terrapin Club and M Club, as well as Chairman and member of the Board of Directors of the Maryland Educational Foundation. Mr. Heise serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Maryland College Park Foundation.

He received his law degree from the University of Virginia in 1950 and his Bachelor Degree from the University of Maryland in 1947.

Mr. Heise was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1950 and the District of Columbia Bar in 1953. He is a member of the American, Maryland, Federal, District of Columbia, and Montgomery County Bar Associations. He is admitted to and has argued before the United States Supreme Court, Court of Military Affairs, U.S. Court of Claims, and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He is a Fellow of the Maryland Bar Foundation. Mr. Heise was originally employed in 1950 as a trial attorney with the United States Department of Justice. During that period and for many years thereafter he specialized in the trial of cases before the U.S. Court of Claims (now United States Claims Court). He entered private practice in 1952 and was associated with the law firm of Shea, Greenman, Gardner & McConnaughey (now Shea & Gardner). He entered practice as a sole practitioner in the District of Columbia and Montgomery County in 1958. His litigation experience has involved trials and appellate work in the federal courts in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, as well as in New York. He became a principal of the law firm which bears his name in 1970.

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Mr. Stefanelli is a principal of the firm and concentrates in the areas of real estate closings, banking law and estate planning. He also is a member of the Board of Directors of Suburban Federal Savings Bank.

Mr. Stefanelli graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1965 and received his law decree from the Washington College of Law at American University in 1968. Following graduation from law school he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Irving A. Levine, Judge of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County Maryland. He then served as assistant general counsel to the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission. He has been employed by the firm since 1973. Over the years he has practiced in the areas of domestic relations, corporate law, estate planning, estate administration, lease negotiations, collections and plaintiff’s negligence cases. From 1975 until 1992 he served as the assistant general counsel for Citizen Savings Bank. He is a past member the Jaycees and Rotary Club and is currently a member of the Montgomery County Bar Association.

He is admitted to practice in the state of Maryland and is a licensed title agent in the state of Maryland and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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Mr. Pettey has been engaged in the full time practice of law since December, 1977 with the law firm of Heise Jorgensen & Stefanelli P.A. He has also served as President of the firm from 1993 to the present. The primary focus of Mr. Pettey's practice is real estate law, especially the representation of residential and commercial real estate lenders, including banks, savings banks and mortgage companies. Mr. Pettey's clients also include residential and commercial land developers and homebuilders. He prepares loan documentation for commercial real estate loans, including residential acquisition, development and construction loans, revolving line of credit loans, office building, office condominium and warehouse loans, and hotel construction loans in the Washington, D.C. area and throughout the country. Mr. Pettey is a licensed title insurance agent in the States of Maryland and West Virginia and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Mr. Pettey is a resident of Montgomery County, Maryland and is active in the legal community. He is a fellow in the American College of Mortgage Attorneys and presently serves on the Board of Regents of the College. As a longtime member of the Montgomery County Bar Association, Mr. Pettey has served as a member of the ethics committee and serves a panelist and panel chair for the peer review panels of the state attorney grievance commission. He is past president of the Maryland Land Title Association. Mr. Pettey also is president and member of the board of directors of his community homeowners association and has served as panel chair for the Montgomery County Commission on Common Ownership Communities. Mr Pettey was named a Maryland "SuperLawyer" by Law and Politics Magazine in January, 2007.

He received his law degree from University of Baltimore in 1977 following his Bachelor of Arts from University of Maryland, College Park in 1974.

Mr. Pettey is member of the American Bar Association, Maryland State Bar Association, Montgomery County Bar Association, Virginia State Bar, Fairfax County Bar Association and is admitted to practice in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the States of Maryland and West Virginia.

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Mr. Henne has been engaged in the full time practice of law with the law firm of Heise Jorgensen & Stefanelli P.A. since December, 1976. He has been a principal of the firm since 1990. Mr. Henne’s practice has included commercial collections, including mechanic’s liens and construction bond claims, mortgage foreclosures, including related bankruptcy matters, and real estate settlements. Mr. Henne is a licensed title insurance producer in Maryland.

Mr. Henne has been a resident of Montgomery County, Maryland since 1959. He has served on his condominium’s Board of Directors in Ocean City, Maryland since 1988.

He received his Juris Doctor from American University in Washington, D.C. in 1976. His undergraduate education was at the University of Maryland, College Park, from which he graduated in 1973.

Mr. Henne is admitted to practice in Maryland and is a member of the Maryland State Bar Association.

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Ms. Kadir has been a member of this firm since 1990.  From 1990 to 1995 her practice focused on contracts, real estate, banking and general civil law.  Since 1995, she has specialized in estates and trusts in Maryland and the District of Columbia, including wills, estate planning, estate administration, and guardianships.  She also presents seminars on wills, trusts, and estate planning.

She received her law degree in 1991 from the University of Maryland.  She previously received an M.A. in International Relations from Georgetown University and a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Karachi, Pakistan.  

Ms. Kadir is a member of the Montgomery County Bar Association and a resident of Silver Spring, MD.

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Mr. Jackson is a principal of the firm and concentrates in the areas of real estate, banking and general corporate law. Mr. Jackson represents several bank clients in a range of matters from creditor's rights to complex commercial lending transactions. Mr. Jackson has represented numerous regional and national companies in areas including civil litigation, contract and lease negotiation and employment law.

Mr. Jackson is a resident of Montgomery County and is very active in the community. He was President of the Montgomery Village Rotary Club and the Montgomery Village Rotary Club Foundation. Through his Rotary involvement, he has actively participated in numerous charitable programs in the local community, including "Rebuilding Together", Hospice Caring, and Gaithersburg's Character Counts Program, and in the global community through the Rotary's Polio Plus and Basra prosthetics programs. Mr. Jackson also enjoys coaching baseball and basketball in various Montgomery County leagues. In addition, Mr. Jackson is currently on the Board of Directors for the Asbury Foundation, Inc., providing oversight for foundation funding at seven continuing care retirement communities located in the Mid-Atlantic region and Oklahoma.

He received his law degree from Wake Forest University in 1992 where he was a member of the Wake Forest Law Review. During law school, he clerked for Harris Beach & Wilcox in Rochester, New York. He received a B.A. in English from Boston College in 1987. Prior to law school he worked for the law firm of Withington, Cross, Park and Groden and for investment firms Smith Barney and The Pioneer Group, Inc, each in Boston, Massachusetts.

Mr. Jackson is member of the Montgomery County Bar Association and is admitted to practice in the Bar of Maryland and in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. He is also a licensed title insurance agent in the State of Maryland and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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