Never among the hundreds of oral arguments I have attended did I ever see an attorney turn to opposing counsel and apologize for what he or she had written in a brief — until Tuesday at Maryland’s top court.

R. Martin Palmer Jr., representing the biological mother in a family law case before the Court of Appeals, turned to attorney Jer Welter and apologized mid-argument for any hurt the brief might have brought his client, a transgender man who seeks visitation with Jaxon, the child he and the mother had via anonymous-donor insemination. Palmer said he did not intend to disparage the man, who changed his name from Michelle to Michael, but to express the mother’s concern for the child’s welfare in the neighborhood.

Wrote Palmer in papers filed with the top court: “Should Michelle have her way with the court, she would have a court order backed by the full powers of the court enabling her to walk down the sidewalk to Jaxon’s home, knock on the door with police behind her, and with court papers in hand announce that she is there for visitation with Jaxon and take him off for overnight visitations; for two weeks in the summer, for holidays and birthdays, etc.”

He added that “other parents will be going home and having discussions behind closed doors” but their children will hear.

“Children can be cruel (they are not politically correct) and on the playground and on the school bus they are going to taunt him: ‘Your father’s a _____. Ha Ha Ha,’” Palmer wrote. “They’ll sing it with a sing-song ring as children do. They will bully him.”

Welter showed no emotion Tuesday as Palmer apologized.

After the arguments, Welter called Palmer’s apology “extraordinary” and the words of his brief “profoundly anti-transgender.”

Welter was appealing lower-court rejections of his client’s bid for parental rights, including visitation. Anticipating victory in the high court, Welter said he hopes Palmer’s regret extends to the remand to trial court.

Palmer’s comments in the brief “have no place in the circuit court or in this court,” Welter added.