Attorneys Jamie Lynn McCutcheon and Michael A. Osman recently joined the Transportation Law Practice Group of Plunkett Cooney.
A member of the firm's Detroit office, McCutcheon focuses her practice on the defense of first- and third-party auto liability cases on behalf of national insurance companies and their policyholders. These matters include potentially high-exposure litigation involving complex and catastrophic injuries. She also has experience handling subrogation matters.
A member of the State Bar of Michigan, McCutcheon is a 2010 graduate of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and a 1998 graduate of Eastern Michigan University.
Osman is also a member of the firm's Detroit office who focuses his practice in the areas of first- and third-party automobile negligence. He represents employers and insurance policyholders in civil litigation involving Michigan's No-Fault Law. These claims involve personal injury protection, uninsured/underinsured motorist disputes and bodily injury.
In addition, Osman has prior experience working with and defending the Michigan Automobile Insurance Placement Facility (MAIPF), an organization designed to provide auto insurance to eligible individuals who were uninsured at the time of a motor vehicle accident. He assisted the MAIPF with determining the eligibility of uninsured applicants and ultimate entitlement to personal injury protection insurance benefits.
Osman is a member of the State Bar of Michigan. He received his law degree from Wayne State University Law School in 2014 and his undergraduate degree from Wayne State University in 2011.
Plunkett Cooney's Transportation Law Practice Group includes the talents of more than 20 attorneys who provide an array of litigation and risk management services, including expertise in the areas of trucking liability, first- and third-party auto liability, cross-border claims with Canada, fraud investigation services and emergency accident response.
In addition, DBusiness magazine recently named 20 metro Detroit attorneys from Plunkett Cooney to its 2020 list of "Top Lawyers."
Below is a list of the Plunkett Cooney attorney who received the 2020 Top Lawyer honor from DBusiness:
D. Jennifer Andreou (partner, Detroit) - Medical Malpractice Law
Michael P. Ashcraft Jr. (partner, Bloomfield Hills) - Legal Malpractice Law
Hilary A. Ballentine (senior attorney, Bloomfield Hills) - Appellate Law
Douglas C. Bernstein (partner, Bloomfield Hills) - Bankruptcy & Creditor/Debtor Rights Law, Banking & Financial Service Law
Charles W. Browning (partner, Bloomfield Hills) - Insurance Law
Dennis G. Cowan (partner, Bloomfield Hills) - Land Use & Zoning
Lawrence R. Donaldson (Of Counsel, Bloomfield Hills) - Legal Malpractice
Jeffrey C. Gerish (partner, Bloomfield Hills) - Appellate Law
Robert G. Kamenec (partner, Bloomfield Hills) - Appellate Law, Medical Malpractice Law
Mark S. Kopson (partner, Bloomfield Hills) - Health Care Law
Mary Massaron (partner, Bloomfield Hills) - Appellate Law
Laurel F. McGiffert (partner/director of Diversity & Inclusion, Detroit) - Labor and Employment Law, Medical Malpractice
Kenneth C. Newa (partner, Bloomfield Hills) - Insurance Law, Litigation - Construction
Claudia D. Orr (senior attorney, Detroit) - Litigation, Labor Employment Benefits
Stanley A. Prokop (Of Counsel, Detroit) - Insurance Law
Mary Catherine Rentz (partner, Detroit) - Insurance Law
Anthony J. Rusciano (Of Counsel, Bloomfield Hills) - Health Care Law
Scott H. Sirich (partner, Bloomfield Hills) - Litigation - Construction
Matthew J. Stanczyk (partner, Detroit) - Product Liability
Thomas P. Vincent (president & CEO, Bloomfield Hills) - Labor and Employment Law
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Maddin, Hauser, Roth, & Heller PC is pleased to announce that R.J. Cronkhite has been elected chair of the State Bar of Michigan's Litigation Section.
The Governing Council unanimously elected Cronkhite as chair after he served as an officer and council member over the past four years. In his new role, Cronkhite aims to broaden the Litigation Section's outreach to its membership and provide increasingly meaningful networking and learning opportunities across the state.
The announcement was made by the firm's president and CEO, Steven D. Sallen.
Cronkhite is a shareholder and member of Maddin Hauser's Complex Litigation and Risk Advisory Practice Group. Cronkhite's litigation experience encompasses a broad range of litigation disputes. He specializes in real estate matters, shareholder litigation, and enforcement of employment agreements, including non-compete and non-solicitation provisions.
Cronkhite is a founding member of the Southfield Area Rotary Club. In 2018, he was elected by his peers to the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. Super Lawyers® selected Cronkhite to the 2019 Michigan Rising Stars list.
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Royal Oak civil rights attorney Jennifer Lord was a participant at a recent litigators artificial intelligence workshop sponsored by the Amsterdam-based Digital Freedom Fund (DFF) and the AI Now Institute at NYU Law School. The event, which was held in mid-November at the Berlin offices of Mozilla (developer of the Firefox web browser), included digital rights attorneys from the U.S., Europe and Latin America.
The two-day meeting brought together attorneys from three continents with experience challenging problematic algorithmic decision-making through the courts, litigators with interest in undertaking this work, as well as other participants with background in artificial intelligence policy work.
Lord's presentation focused on a faulty algorithmic decision-making program which inflicted extensive harm to more than 40,000 Michigan residents who were falsely accused of benefits fraud by the State of Michigan's AI-based program used to administrate its Unemployment Insurance Agency. The highly automated system, which was installed to reduce headcount and increase accuracy and efficiency, improperly rendered serious accusations and assessed huge fines and penalties without human input or oversight.
Lord, a partner with Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, & Rivers in Royal Oak, serves as co-counsel in a class action lawsuit representing the thousands of Michigan residents falsely accused of fraud by the flawed AI-based administrative system.
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Bodman PLC is pleased to announce that two of its attorneys, Sarah L. Cylkowski and Katelyn M. Young, were honored by the Detroit Bar Association (DBA) at the recent 2019 Archer Awards program held at the Detroit Yacht Club.
Cylkowski, of Bodman's Detroit office, was honored as a Fellow of the Detroit Bar Association (DBA) and its Foundation. In order to qualify as a DBA Fellow, attorneys must have demonstrated a lifetime of achievement or exceptional service to other lawyers and to the community, including support for the DBA's pro bono, education, and community service activities.
Cylkowski is a long-time active member of the Detroit Bar Association and its young lawyers section, the Barristers. She is a current trustee of the DBA Foundation and a past recipient of the DBA Barristers Pro Bono Award for her work seeking resentencing for Michigan prison inmates who had been sentences to mandatory life sentences under now-outmoded guidelines for crimes committed as juveniles.
Young, also of Bodman's Detroit office, was honored as a recipient of a DBA Pro Bono Award, which recognizes attorneys who have made outstanding contributions to pro bono and community service initiatives.
Young is a current member of the board of trustees of the DBA Barristers Section and chairs the Outreach Committee which coordinates volunteer opportunities for Barristers members. She is an active participant in Bodman's pro bono program and coordinates monthly "Ask the Attorney" legal clinics for Detroit-based social service agency Crossroads of Michigan.
Proceeds from the Archer Award ceremony support many of the DBA's community outreach programs including the Pro Bono Repository, Law Day, the Access to Justice program, and other important initiatives.
