Plunkett Cooney elects board of directors members, officers

At the recent annual meeting of Plunkett Cooney three shareholders were elected by their colleagues to serve three-year terms as members of the board of directors. David R. Stechow was elected for the first time while Audrey J. Forbush and Scott K. Lites were re-elected.

In addition, the firm is pleased to announce that shareholders Michael S. Bogren, Michael P. Ashcraft Jr. and Forbush were re-elected by the members of the board of directors to one-year terms as chairman, secretary/treasurer and senior vice president, respectively.

Stechow, who serves as co-leader of the firm’s Construction Law Practice Group, has successfully litigated both jury trials and arbitrations on behalf of builders, contractors, management companies, manufacturers and suppliers. A member of the firm’s Detroit office, he received his law degree in 1996 from the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and his undergraduate degree in 1992 from Michigan State University. A member of the Oakland County Bar Association, the State Bar of Michigan and the Steering Committee of ALFA International’s Construction Group, Stechow was selected in 2010 as a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, an honorary trial lawyer society comprised of less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers.

The managing partner of Plunkett Cooney’s Flint office and co-leader of the firm’s Governmental Law Practice Group, Forbush focuses her practice in the areas of municipal and medical liability. She has particular expertise representing municipalities in police liability matters. Forbush is a member of the public corporation section of the Michigan and Genesee County bar associations, and she serves as legal advisor to the Law Enforcement Action Forum, an organization consisting of select law enforcement executives throughout Michigan. Forbush received her law degree, magna cum laude, from Western Michigan University Cooley Law School in 1988 and her undergraduate degree from Central Michigan University in 1984.

Lites, who is a member of the firm’s Bloomfield Hills office, is one of the firm’s most accomplished business attorneys with over 30 years of experience representing clients in their acquisition, financing, investment, development and disposition activities. He routinely negotiates and closes multi-million dollar financial transactions, real estate development projects and franchise agreements. He also has the distinction of having served as special counsel to a Michigan-based public employee pension system and as an appointed member of the state of Michigan’s Receivership Transition Advisory Board for the City of Allen Park. Lites received his law degree in 1985 from the University of Detroit School of Law and his undergraduate degree in 1982 from the University of Michigan.

A member of the firm’s Grand Rapids office, Bogren has been a member of the firm’s board of directors since 2003, serving as chair since 2012. He is a member of Plunkett Cooney’s Governmental Law Practice Group, and he has extensive experience representing municipalities in both state and federal courts in police liability claims, First Amendment law, due process claims, Open Meetings Act claims, FOIA claims, zoning matters, civil rights cases and employment litigation. A 1982 cum laude graduate of University of Detroit School of Law, Bogren is a member of the Public Corporations Section of the State Bar of Michigan, the American Bar Association and the Civil Rights Section of the Federal Bar Association. He received his undergraduate degree, cum laude, from Western Michigan University in 1979.

Ashcraft, who serves as a co-leader of Plunkett Cooney’s Professional Liability Practice Group, concentrates his practice on the defense of attorneys, accountants, and their firms on professional liability and responsibility matters. A partner in the firm’s Bloomfield Hills office, he also represents insurance brokers and agents, securities brokers, real estate brokers and agents, investment advisors, officers and directors, and notaries public in professional liability cases in state and federal courts. Ashcraft graduated, cum laude, from Michigan State University College of Law in 1992, and he received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in 1987. He is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the Oakland County Bar Association’s Negligence Section, the State Bar of Michigan’s Professional Ethics Committee and the American Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and Liability.