by Cynthia Price
Legal News
In 2016, the Grand Rapids Bar Association (GRBA) First Year Committee started recognizing three outstanding attorneys in their first ten years of practice with a 3 in 10 Award.
The 2019 honorees are Christine Cameron, Kellen Dotson, and Katie Johnson, and they received their awards at the May 16 GRBA annual meeting.
All three meet the award’s criteria: outstanding professional achievement, exceptional public service, and significant contribution to the legal profession. They all also seem to typify the gracious, service-oriented, collegial attitude of the bar in Kent County.
As Johnson, who works for Legal Aid of Western Michigan, comments, “I was pleased to see that two of us who won the award work in legal non-profits that serve the community. It’s encouraging that the bar in general acknowledges and appreciates that type of work. It shows what the Grand Rapids Bar is really like - it’s a cordial bar. You can zealously advocate for your client here, but then when we get together, there’s a degree of civility that’s second to none.”
Kellen Dotson does criminal defense at the Kent County Office of the Defender, and the third honoree, Christine Cameron, works in the private sector for PTJ Properties, a management and development company, and has given very generously of her time to the GRBA starting during law school.
The three have a few things in common. All three received their J.D. degrees from Western Michigan University-Cooley Law School. They also all volunteer for the GRBA 3Rs program conducting civic education in Grand Rapids Preparatory High School.
But there the resemblance ends, as each follows his or her passion in career and outside interests.
Cameron is probably best known for her work as president of the GRBA Young Lawyer Section, which she surmises was probably a factor in being chosen as one of the 3 in 10. “I think I was just around enough,” she says modestly, with a laugh.
The Elkhart, Ind., native came to this area to attend Olivet College, which is south of Lansing. After graduation from WMU-Cooley, where she says she enjoyed participating in the school’s 60 plus clinic, Cameron joined West Michigan Legal Group. When that disbanded, she and Callista Gloss Sullivan started Grand Rapids Legal Advocates, where Cameron did mostly criminal defense and family law. “I do still take cases under Grand Rapids Legal Advocates, but for the past two years my main job has been the property company,” Cameron says.
At PTJ Properties, she handles real estate transactions, contracts, and landlord-tenant disputes. She also does non-legal work, which is facilitated by having a real estate license herself.
Cameron does note that she is proud of the work she did with the Young Lawyers Section, before and during her 2018 presidency. “We really did a lot of events,” she says. “Most of them were social, like a progressive dinner, but we also had a monthly lunch and learn with great speakers, helped the West Michigan Justice Foundation with their fund-raiser in February, and did a can drive and plastic bag drive for a food pantry.”
That and Cameron’s work on the Law School Liaison Committee and other GRBA initiatives were likely factors that led to her receiving the 3 in 10 Award. “I didn’t even know I was nominated. I just got an email a few days before. I was really surprised but also happy to be recognized,” she says.
Kellen Dotson had a similar reaction. “I think being a public defender you don’t expect to be recognized and you don’t do it to be recognized, so for me it was amazing,” he comments.
Born in Lansing but raised in Tempe, Ariz., Dotson went to Eastern Michigan University for his undergraduate degree. He did not start out to be a lawyer. “It was something that I intensely tried to avoid,” he says. “My father’s an attorney, and I tried to sway away from that. But I was brought back into it as I realized that it would further my goals of helping people. For me, it was either civil rights law or being a public defender.”
He has been with the Office of the Defender since the beginning of 2016.
Working with the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission, Dotson has had the opportunity to become part of Gideon’s Promise, a support organization for public defenders named after the famed Gideon v. Wainwright 1963 decision that mandates states to appoint defense attorneys for the indigent.
“It’s just been a great opportunity. There’s a really strong client-centered approach that I’ve seen. Laura Joyce of my office attends the training too, and this will be our first summer mentoring as part of the Gideon’s Promise class of 2016.” Through that organization, which is featured as part of an excellent HBO documentary called Gideon’s Army, Dotson recently spoke to a group of law students at Yale.
“My thing is, I do a lot of work with kids in this area,” he says. This includes volunteering with LINC, with the Delta Project counseling through the Kent County Juvenile Detention Center, as a mentor at several schools, and with the United Way Schools of Hope. He has also been active with the Floyd Skinner Bar Association.
“At Legal Aid, I work in family law, with victims of domestic violence – and it’s amazing to see the change in them from the time they walk in to the intake appointment until the case is over – and also in landlord-tenant,” says Katie Johnson, who has been a staff attorney there since 2014.
“But one of the things that I enjoy the most is being part of the strategic litigation team in our office. We try to pick issues in the community that will have an effect on more than just one person, issues with a broader impact,” she adds.
After attending Grand Valley State University (GVSU), Johnson, who is from Lowell, clerked for Judge Christopher Yates in the 17th Circuit Court working on the business docket, and was a GVSU adjunct professor in legal research and writing.
Johnson’s community involvements include Safe Haven and CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates)?of Kent , but her greatest passion has been the GRBA 3Rs program.
“This past year was my fifth. When I started here at Legal Aid, my managing attorney agreed that I could continue doing that during the day. It’s a learning experience for the kids, but for me as well. It’s interesting to be able to get a pulse on how the students feel about the issues in our community,” she says.
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