Legal People

 Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP

Kenneth R. Marcus, a partner in the Health Care Practice Group of Honigman, Miller, Schwartz, and Cohn LLP, has been named to this year’s class of Fellows for the State Bar of Michigan Health Care Law Section. The Fellows program recognizes individuals who have made continual and outstanding contributions to the Section and are generally considered as top health care attorneys in Michigan. Marcus was recognized for his contribution to the training of attorneys through his speaking and writing on a variety of health law topics.
 
He is nationally recognized for his work on hospital Medicare and Medicaid payment appeal issues for numerous hospitals in individual and group appeals before the Provider Reimbursement Review Board, the federal district courts and federal courts of appeals. He also advises clients on Medicare and Medicaid Anti-Fraud and Abuse Provisions, the Stark Act and the Federal False Claims Act.  In his thirty year career as a health attorney, Marcus also has represented clients in major business transactions such as establishment of health systems, hospital mergers, managed care contracting, integrated delivery system development, hospital-physician joint ventures, hospital physician practice acquisitions and physician contracting
Marcus has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America, Michigan Super Lawyers and DBusiness’ Top Lawyers. He earned his law degree from Wayne State University Law School. He also earned an M.H.S.A. from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from the State University of New York.

In addition, J. Adam Rothstein, a partner in Honigman’s Real Estate Department, has been appointed to the board of JVS, a nonprofit organization based in Southfield. The mission of JVS is to help people meet life challenges affecting their self-sufficiency through counseling, training and support services.

Rothstein, who is the leader of Honigman’s practice groups for retail, hospitality and lodging, focuses his practice on transactions from coast to coast, representing a wide range of real estate owners, operators and users. His clients include shopping center, hotel, multifamily, self-storage and office building owners and operators, including publicly traded real estate investment trusts, as well as some of the largest privately owned real estate operators in the United States.

Rothstein has been recognized in Chambers USA: American’s Leading Lawyers for Business, The Best Lawyers in America, Michigan Super Lawyers and DBusiness’ Top Lawyers. He earned a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School and a B.A. from the University of Michigan.

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TI Automotive
TI Automotive, a global supplier of fluid storage, carrying and delivery technology, has named Matthew Paroly chief legal officer and company secretary. He replaces Tim Guerriero, who is retiring after 15 years with the company.
 
Paroly has more than 20 years of experience in private law practice and in-house executive and legal positions with both public and private companies.  He has experience in key areas of corporate law, including financial transactions and joint ventures, regulatory compliance, corporate governance and disclosure requirements. He has also managed legal support for a wide range of functional and commercial activities, such as sales, purchasing, distribution, aftermarket, intellectual property and human resources.

Prior to joining TI Automotive, Paroly worked with several automotive suppliers and manufacturers, including Nexteer Automotive, Fisker Automotive, Meridian Automotive, and Delphi Corporation.
Paroly is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School, and is a member of both the State Bar of Michigan and State Bar of California.

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Wolverine Bar Association
The Wolverine Bar Association recently announced that Sharika Robinson is this year’s recipient of the Margrette A. Taylor Distinguished Young Lawyer Award.
 
The award is named in honor of Margrette A. Taylor, who was a dedicated member of the WBA’s Board of Directors when she passed away in 2000. Taylor was committed to serving the community and her reputation for excellence was unsurpassed. 

Robinson is a federal law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Victoria A. Roberts, Eastern District of Michigan. Once a single mother of four, Robinson graduated first in her class in May 2012 from North Carolina Central University School of Law. She is currently piloting a parent group, Minority Parent Student Support Group, which is tailored to ensuring that all children are treated equally. Additionally, Robinson is co-piloting the African-American Parent and Student Coalition, a group of minority parents who are working to eliminate the academic achievement gap. For the past two years, Robinson has served on the WBA’s Judicial Externship Committee which pairs minority students with federal judges every summer.
 
Robinson accepted the award at the WBA’s President’s Reception on June 27 in Detroit.

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Varnum LLP
Varnum is pleased to announce that veteran intellectual property attorney Timothy K. Kroninger has joined the firm’s Metro Detroit office.
 
Kroninger joins Varnum from IPPES LLC in Troy where he was the principal and acted as the firm’s CEO and chief legal officer. Prior to that he was the associate general counsel and senior vice president, Legal Affairs and Business Development at Equity Management Inc. in Troy, after serving as a senior attorney with General Motors Corporation in Detroit.

Kroninger has experience in many legal business areas including intellectual property and contract law, corporate and general business law, franchise and marketing law, and trademark/brand licensing. His experience includes working with Fortune 500 companies around the world.  Moreover, Kroninger uses and draws upon his significant experience to apply a unique perspective, philosophy, and attitude to assist small to medium size companies in analyzing, evaluating, protecting, and enforcing their  intellectual property from an overall strategic perspective, which is very unique to the legal industry. 

Kroninger is the ninth attorney to join Varnum’s Metro Detroit office in the past 18 months.

Outside of his practice, Kroninger is an active member of the community in southeast Michigan. He currently serves as a board member and vice president of the Optimist Club of Auburn Hills. He is a board member, treasurer and past president of the Crescent Ridge/Parc Subdivision Association, active in coaching youth sports, and a member of the Michigan State University Alumni Association and the Michigan State University – President’s Club and Beaumont Tower Society.

Kroninger earned his law degree from the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. He obtained his undergraduate B.A. degree from Michigan State University, College of Business.

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Kerr Russell
Robert S. Anderson has joined Kerr Russell in the Immigration Law Practice Group.  Anderson has experience in counseling and representing local, national and international companies in a diverse range of comprehensive employment-based immigration services and solutions, including formulation and implementation of short and/or long-term employment plans.  
 
Anderson is a member of the State Bar of Michigan, the American Immigration Lawyers Association where he is currently serving as the chair of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Liaison
Committee for the Michigan Chapter, and is a member of the Talent Attraction & Retention Committee for MichAuto.     

Anderson received his law degrees from Thomas M. Cooley Law School and Wayne State University Law School.  

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Dickinson Wright PLLC
Dickinson Wright attorney Thomas G. McNeill will receive the 2014 State Bar of Michigan’s Kimberly M. Cahill Bar Leadership Award in September.
 
The Kimberly M. Cahill Award is presented to a recognized local or affinity bar association, program, or leader for excellence in promoting the ideal of professionalism or equal justice for all, or in responding to a compelling legal need within the community during the past year or on an ongoing basis. 

With the 2014 Cahill Award, the State Bar recognizes the collaboration of McNeill, as president of the Federal Bar Association, Eastern District of Michigan Chapter, with the Court’s Pro Bono Committee (chaired by the U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood) and leaders of forty-five firms and eight bar associations. McNeill and the leadership group envisioned, designed and implemented the Eastern District of Michigan Pro Bono Council, which has committed to handling 150 cases per year for indigent civil litigants with matters before the federal court.

McNeill is a trial lawyer resident in the firm’s Detroit office. In addition to his class action defense work, he focuses his practice on business and financial litigation representing Fortune 500 companies, closely held business enterprises and entrepreneurs in the areas of business torts, securities, mergers & acquisitions, accounting, private equity and financial institutions. He is recognized as a leader in the field by: Chambers USA; Benchmark: Litigation; Michigan Super Lawyers (Top 100 in the State and in Business Litigation); and Best Lawyers in America (four litigation disciplines, and Detroit area 2013-2014 Lawyer of the Year in Mergers & Acquisitions litigation and 2014-15 Lawyer of the Year in Securities Litigation). 

By appointment of  Gov. Rick Snyder, McNeill serves on the State Appellate Defender Commission; he serves as president of the Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association Inn of Court and is the immediate past president of the Federal Bar Association, Eastern District of Michigan Chapter. He received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and his law degree from the University of Virginia.

The 2014 Cahill Award will be conferred upon McNeill during the State Bar of Michigan Annual Meeting Awards Banquet on Sept. 17 at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids.

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Warner, Norcross, & Judd LLP
Warner, Norcross, & Judd LLP has hired Ann Horowitz as a client development manager.
 
In her new role with the firm, Horowitz will work with Warner Norcross attorneys to identify new business and economic opportunities in southeast Michigan and the Great Lakes Bay Region.  

Horowitz brings six years of legal and client service skills to the firm. She has most recently served as a law clerk to Midland County Circuit Court Judge Stephen P. Carras. She has also worked for Masud Labor Law Group and the Mastromarco Firm, both in Saginaw.  In addition, she completed a legal internship with the Washtenaw County prosecuting attorney and an externship for the Allegheny
County District Attorney in Pittsburgh.

Horowitz earned an undergraduate degree in environmental studies from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa. and a law degree from the Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh.

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Dykema
Dykema recently announced that Peter Kellett has been re-elected chairman and chief executive officer of the firm for a second three-year term commencing on Jan. 1, 2015. Kellett has served as chairman and chief executive officer since Jan. 1, 2012.
 
Kellett previously served the firm as Litigation Practice Group Leader (2003-2007) and as its Litigation Department Director (2008-2011). Prior to becoming chair of the firm, he also served for many years as trial counsel for some of the nation’s largest corporations, enjoying successes in courtrooms across the country and close relationships with many of the firm’s major clients.  

Kellett earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a law degree from Wayne State University Law School. Upon graduation from law school in 1982, Kellett joined Dykema as an associate in the Litigation Department. In 1986, he joined the legal staff at Dykema client CMI Corporation, a leasing and finance company in Bloomfield Hills. After the sale of that company in 1987, Kellett co-founded with James P. Feeney a boutique product liability litigation practice in Bloomfield Hills that ultimately grew to 24 lawyers, until 2003 when the majority of that firm joined Dykema. 

Kellett is an associate member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), a Sustaining Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and a life member of the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference. 

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Wolverine Bar Association
The Wolverine Bar Association recently elected Plunkett Cooney attorney Randal M. Brown as president-elect of its board of directors for the 2014 – 2015 bar year. 
 
“I’m committed to the continued success of the Wolverine Bar Association,” said Brown. “Serving in this role will allow me to help further the association’s goals of supporting the African-American community and promoting the talented attorneys who practicing law here in metro Detroit.”

Established by African-American attorneys during the 1930s, the Wolverine Bar Association was organized to coordinate the energies and talents of the increasing number of African-Americans admitted to practice law throughout Michigan. The association provides its members with a platform from which to address the unique needs of the community for legal service, representation and protection.

Brown is a member of Plunkett Cooney’s Litigation Department and concentrates his practice in the areas of general litigation; municipal law and trucking and transportation liability. He also has experience handling employment and general tort liability claims on behalf of municipal clients. Brown is the former chairperson of Plunkett Cooney’s Associate Development Committee and a current member of the firm’s Hiring Committee. 

Brown is a member of the State Bar of Michigan and the Wolverine Bar where he served last year as a member of the Finance Committee.
A graduate from Howard University School of Law in 2006, Brown earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware in 2003.

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Barris, Sott, Denn & Driker PLLC
Barris, Sott, Denn, & Driker PLLC is pleased to announce that Benchmark has named Sharon M. Woods as one of the top 250 women in litigation nationwide for 2014.  
 
Woods is the chairperson of BSDD’s litigation department and served as BSDD’s managing member for twenty-four years, after joining BSDD in 1972 as its first woman attorney.  She is known for handling “bet the company” business litigation and specializes in legal and accounting malpractice defense, construction law, employment law, business torts, and alternative dispute resolution.  
Woods was elected a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers in 1989 and was elected to its national Board of Regents for 2001-2005.  She was elected a fellow of the International Academy of
Trial Lawyers in 2003.  

Woods earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in biology and mathematics and a law degree both from the University of Detroit.