Wayne State University Law School, Wayne Law Board of Visitors, and Wayne Law Alumni Association have announced the Wayne Law alumni honorees for the 2013 Treasure of Detroit Gala on Saturday, Sept. 28.
The honorees are:
• U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Detroit, Wayne Law Class of 1958, a Democrat serving his 24th term in Congress.
• Michael Pitt, Class of 1974, a founding member and managing partner of Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, Rivers, and Golden.
• Michael Steinberg, Class of 1989, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan since 1997.
• Gary Torgow, Class of 1982, chairman of Talmer Bancorp and president and founder of the Sterling Group.
Since 1998, the Treasure of Detroit has been Wayne Law’s premiere event to honor members of the legal profession and to celebrate the growth and success of the law school.
The Treasure of Detroit Gala will take place from 6-10 p.m. in the Atheneum Suite Hotel International Banquet Center, 400 Monroe St. in Detroit.
Conyers is the second-most senior member in the House and one of the 13 founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Last year, Conyers announced that the Damon J. Keith Collection of African American Legal History at Wayne Law would be the beneficiary of the papers and records of his decades in Congress.
The materials will include original documents related to Conyers’ work promoting civil rights and social justice.
In 2006, Conyers was elected by his colleagues to lead as chairman the House Committee on the Judiciary. The committee’s oversight includes the Department of Justice, FBI, federal courts, civil rights, consumer protection and constitutional issues.
Conyers has been awarded many times for his leadership, including being presented by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Award.
Pitt is a board member of the Public Justice Foundation and a member of the Wayne Law Board of Visitors.
His firm has handled a variety of civil rights cases, including the landmark Neal v. Michigan Department of Corrections class-action settled in 2009 after a dozen years of trial for $100 million to more than 400 female prisoners who were sexually assaulted by male prison guards.
As a result of the case, male guards no longer staff female residential units in Michigan jails and prisons.
In 2001, Pitt and his wife set up the Michael L. and Peggy Goldberg Pitt Endowed Award Scholarship to provide financial assistance and improved access to Wayne Law students with physical disabilities.
They also spearhead efforts each year for the Mark Weiss Endowed Scholarship Fund at Wayne Law for students and recent graduates committed to public interest law careers.
Pitt, his law partners and Public Justice also established the Dean A. Robb Public Interest Lecture Series at Wayne Law to inspire law students, attorneys, public interest groups and everyday citizens to become more active in public service and public interest law.
Steinberg is director of Wayne Law’s new Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Clinic.
He began his law career as a clerk for then-Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Marilyn Kelly and then went into private practice in Ann Arbor, specializing in civil rights litigation and civil and criminal appeals.
Among his cases was a successful challenge to the Ann Arbor Police Department’s practice of coercing African-American men into giving blood for DNA testing during a serial rapist investigation.
Since joining the staff of the ACLU, Steinberg has worked on various cases on a wide range of civil liberties issues.
In one such case, Bassett v. Snyder, the ACLU, under Steinberg’s direction, filed an equal protection challenge in federal court on behalf of several same-sex couples after the state in 2011 passed a law to make it illegal for most public employers to voluntarily provide health insurance coverage to same-sex domestic partners of employees.
In June 2013, U.S. District Judge David Lawson struck down the law, agreeing with the ACLU argument that the law denied equal protection to people in same-sex relationships.
Torgow and longtime friend David Provost joined forces in 2007 to operate First Michigan Bancorp.
In April 2013, they renamed their venture Talmer Bancorp.
The name honors both of their grandfathers and is formed from their surnames. Along the way, it completed six bank acquisitions and grew from a $90 million banking institution in April 2010 to a $4.5 billion banking institution as of March 2013. Talmer Bancorp is the third largest bank headquartered in Michigan. It operates 87 branches and 20 loan production offices throughout the Midwest.
Torgow founded the Sterling Group in 1988. The real estate and development, investment and management company has acquired, developed and operated a number of landmark properties in southeastern Michigan.
He serves on the boards of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, First Place Bank of Ohio and Jackson National Life Insurance Co. of New York. He is a trustee and board member of the Community Foundation of Southeastern Michigan and serves on the foundation boards of Wayne State University and Henry Ford Hospital.
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