Salter came from a legal household: a colleague's memorial places him in 1970 in a Silver Spring firm alongside his father and Jim Tomes. The colleague, Luis F. Gomez Jr., first met him that year when he began a solo practice in the same town. Salter's documented education took place entirely in Maryland, beginning at a county community college and continuing through a state university and a Baltimore law school.
Salter attended Montgomery Junior College, now Montgomery College, which received his Associate of Arts degree in 1962. The college was founded in 1946 and held its first classes in the evenings at a local high school, with many early students being veterans returning from World War II. It acquired the former Bliss Electrical School in Takoma Park by 1950, while its Rockville campus did not open until 1965.
He received a Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) from the University of Maryland in 1964. The institution traces its origins to the Maryland Agricultural College, chartered in 1856 in what is now College Park, and it merged in 1920 with the Baltimore professional schools to form the University of Maryland.
His legal education followed at the University of Baltimore School of Law, which conferred his LL.B. in 1968. The law school was founded in 1925 as part of the then-private, nonprofit University of Baltimore and initially offered a part-time evening program for working adults. Its full-time day division was not added until 1969.
Salter was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1969. By 1970 he was practicing law in Silver Spring, Maryland, in a firm with his father and Jim Tomes, under the name Tomes and Salter.
His practice covered general civil trial work, which involves litigating disputes in court, in state and federal courts, together with taxation matters. He later moved his practice first to Potomac and then to Rockville, Maryland, while keeping the Tomes and Salter name, as his colleague recalled. In his Rockville years the firm was known as Tomes, Salter & Taylor, and he served as a partner.
Salter died suddenly on September 11, 2007, on the courthouse steps in Silver Spring, Maryland. His colleague recalled that he died while still working as a lawyer.
A colleague reported that Salter once said he was not afraid of dying, as long as he did not wither away. The colleague also wrote that Salter believed in the law and in what it stood for.
A colleague described Salter as intellectually sharp and insightful, able to see through complicated legal and factual issues to the heart of a matter. The same colleague wrote that Salter loved the law and the practice of law.
Quotes from others about the person
Luis F. Gomez Jr. recalled that Salter would put a judge on hold, stop a deposition, or ask others to wait when another call came in.
Salter married Carol, and the couple had two children, Carrie and Jamie. A colleague's memorial said that Salter loved his family more than his profession.
He practiced in Silver Spring with his father and Jim Tomes, and the firm kept the Tomes and Salter name. Luis F. Gomez Jr., a Maryland lawyer who began practicing in Silver Spring in 1970, described Salter as a friend and colleague and later wrote a memorial tribute after his death.
Maryland lawyer who first met Salter in 1970, when Gomez began practicing in Silver Spring; he later wrote a memorial tribute after Salter's death in 2007.
Lawyer who practiced with Salter and Salter's father in a Silver Spring firm bearing the Tomes and Salter name.
