LEGAL NEWS PHOTO BY CYNTHIA PRICE
by Cynthia Price
Legal News
If there is anyone who is familiar with the benefits of Grand Rapids Bar Association membership, it is incoming President Randy Velzen, a family law attorney with Mika Meyers.
Not only has he come up through the ranks in its leadership, but he has also participated and served in any number of capacities since he chaired the Young Lawyers Section as a beginning attorney and was on the board of trustees almost 40 years ago.
He has been a member of the pro bono committee, the membership committee, the library committee, and was formerly a mentor in the GRBA?mentoring program. He was on the executive committee for Alternative Dispute Resolution, and chaired the Family Law Section.
But Velzen recognizes that times have changed, and what drew people to joining years ago may not work now.
“When I started, you were a member of the Grand Rapids Bar Association because they had the law library. There were weekly lunch meetings for a while. You weren’t required to be in the bar, but everybody joined,” Velzen says.
“I was on the board at the time they made the decision to give the law library to Grand Valley, and eventually they gave it to Cooley... and after that, you wanted to be a member of the GRBA because every year, they would put out a phone directory that had addresses and phone numbers of all the members. If you weren’t in that book, it just didn’t feel right. And it had pictures, which was a big deal if you were going to meet somebody at court that you didn’t know, for example. But now all that is online.
“So now I keep coming back to what we can provide is the local inside stuff. That local piece of the puzzle is what I’m focusing on, particularly on maintaining strong sections.”
He adds, “One of the most important things is that you get to know the judges. For example, it’s really quirky in family law where I practice. For the pro con hearing, which is really the final step, all of the Kent County judges except one use referees to handle it. If your judge is Judge Zemaitis, the pro con will be on a different day. If you don’t know that you can look bad to your client. Those kinds of quirks are where we can really help,” Velzen is well aware that there is the additional challenge of communicating that to potential new GRBA members.
“I don’t think I’ll insult the younger attorneys if I observe that they don’t join organizations like we used to,” he says. “We really want to benefit these attorneys, and we want to let them know that membership is beneficial. Right now, the organization is very healthy, with terrific staff and lots of people interested in leadership, but we have to get the word out to keep it that way.”
A recent change, for which Velzen takes some of the credit, will help streamline the process of running for office, and, he hopes, keep good people involved. The bylaws change instituting a new election procedure was approved at the GRBA annual meeting May 17.
“What we’ve done as long as I can remember is, we’d have a slate of two for each position – we never voted for president because it’s always the previous vice-president – but even for each board of trustees position, there were two. What happened was that if people lost their two-person competition, for the most part they’d lose interest. And it was often a name recognition contest; I don’t know if a judge running has ever lost,” he says with a laugh.
“So now we’re going to do a full slate for a thumbs up or thumbs down vote. An independent committee, with more than half its members not officers or board members, will put that together. We have provisions in there so it doesn’t just become an old boys club, such as if somebody submits a petition signed by X number of attorneys, that person can run. But I’m very optimistic that this will be an improvement” he comments.
Though the GRBA strategic plan is scheduled for review this year, and that process is underway, Velzen is more interested in strengthening the programs and working with people to gain membership. “I guess I’m a bit of a known quantity,” he says with a laugh.
One of the areas he is best known for is his advocacy on behalf of collaborative practice in family law and of Alternative Dispute Resolution, or, as he says, “Geeks like me call it Appropriate Dispute Resolution.”
Collaborative practice is the process whereby couples voluntarily agree to end their marriage without litigation, working with attorneys and, often, other professionals such as counselors to achieve a settlement fair to the couple and any children involved. Velzen was a founder of the Collaborative Divorce Professionals of West Michigan, is a member and on the standards committee of the International academy of Collaborative Professionals, and served on the Michigan Supreme Court Task Force on Court Rules for Collaborative Practice. He was also on the MSC?Conciliation Workgroup on the Friend of the Courts’ conciliation practice.
Named a “Most Influential Attorney” by Michigan Lawyers Weekly, and a former recipient of both the GRBA President’s Award (2011) and the Legal Aid of Western Michigan’s Michael S. Barnes Award (2005), Velzen also participates in the State Bar of Michigan, including the Family Law Section Legislative Committee. In that role, he helped with passage of the Michigan Uniform Collaborative Law Act in 2014.
Velzen, who spent years as a solo practitioner, joined Mika Meyers in 2017. The Grand Rapids native, who spent part of his childhood in Ann Arbor while his father attended University of Michigan, went to Calvin College for undergrad and took an “ecumenical left hand turn” to get his J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School.
One lesser-known aspect of Velzen’s life is that he was a long-time competitive runner, but back surgeries unfortunately ended that. He has also always been an avid sailing competitor. He and wife Laurie, a senior paralegal at Warner Norcross + Judd whom Velzen frequently praises for sacrificing to help him succeed, have two sons and a daughter.
Among Velzen’s goals as GRBA president this year is to finish establishing the “lawyer lounge” at the courthouse, which would provide some technology and a place where attorneys could get work done while waiting at court. “We’re committed to getting that in place this year,” he says. “So that will be exciting.”
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