The City of Baltimore has come under criticism after hiring a law firm to investigate safety practices after a city worker died from heatstroke, which is also reportedly involved in representing an employers' coalition concerned with "weakening federal standards" and "push[ing] back on new OSHA regulations" regarding heat exposure protections.

The appointment comes after sanitation worker Ronald Silver II died on 2 August from hyperthermia, according to the Chief Medical Examiner. The City had issued a heat advisory on the day Ronald Silver II died. Silver's family has also criticised the city's hiring of the firm as its investigator while the Baltimore Police Department and a state agency are both also conducting investigations.

The law firm, Conn Maciel Carey LLP, was invited to respond to the concerns but did not.

The Conn Maciel Carey report was released in October. Silver's family said it differed little from findings by Baltimore's inspector general about hazardous conditions at sanitation yards before he died and that the agency had not listen to warnings, including when other workers had fallen ill t work previously.

When Silver was hired he did not receive training on extreme heat illness, neither did his supervisors. The president of union ADSCME Local 44 criticised the appointment of Conn Maciel Carey as a pro-employer lobbying firm seeking to weaken workplace standards. The City of Baltimore has not released its contract with the law firm, nor disclosed how much it was paid.