By Tom Gantert
Legal News
Five years ago, Jeffrey Anderson was going to have lunch with a Cooley Law School student as a favor to a colleague.
Anderson was meeting Steven Makulski only out of courtesy. He had no intention of hiring him or anyone else.
"By the end of the lunch, I was asking him how quickly he could come in and help me out," Anderson recalls. "He wasn't even a lawyer at that point."
After that lunch, Makulski started working for Anderson as a clerk. In 2009, he graduated from Cooley Law School, passed the bar, and became an associate.
Makulski, 29, was promoted to principal earlier this year, and the firm became Anderson & Makulski, PC.
Anderson, who started his real estate, business, trusts and estate planning law firm in 1993, is a transactional lawyer who isn't in a court room often. In addition to following in Anderson's footsteps as a transactional attorney, Makulski also has litigation experience in real estate and business law.
"It was a perfect fit," said Makulski, a Detroit native.
Jackson attorney Rick Mills said Makulski's litigation experience came early in his career.
"He's been involved in complex litigation and has done some work in federal court," Mills said. "He's done a lot of things for an attorney with his years of experience, which is pretty uncommon. He's done some fairly sophisticated estate planning."
With the state's slumping economy the last few years, Makulski said he's been getting more work involving foreclosures of residential and commercial properties.
He said banks have become more aggressive in going after deficiency judgments in foreclosures.
In the past, banks would just write off the loss of the difference in what the home was sold for at the sheriff's sale and what the owners still owed on the mortgage, Makulski said.
"Because usually, if they can't afford to pay their mortgage, why spend a lot of money on legal fees to get a paper judgment that will be difficult to collect on?" Makulski said.
But now banks are hurting and need to find ways to collect, said Makulski, who also does work involving boundary disputes and breach of contract cases.
"They are getting into the debt collection business for mortgages more than they have in the past," he said.
Makulski and his wife, Miranda, a physician with Allegiance Health, are raising their two-year-old daughter, Kathy, in Jackson County.
Though he says he's tone deaf and doesn't sing, he enjoys serving on the Jackson Chorale Club Board of Directors. Makulski is also a member of the Knights of Columbus and is in the process of joining Noon Rotary.
"We feel that there is no better place to raise our daughter than right here in Jackson," said Makulski.
Published: Thu, May 10, 2012
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