Mark High, a member in the Detroit office of Dickinson Wright PLLC, has been named the recipient of the 16th Annual Stephen H. Schulman Outstanding Business Lawyer Award by the State Bar of Michigan’s Business Law Section. This prestigious award honors Michigan business lawyers who consistently exemplify the characteristics the Business Law Section seeks to foster and facilitate: the highest quality of professionalism, the highest quality of practice, and an unwavering dedication to service, ethical conduct, and collegiality within the practice of law.
High specializes in business transactional matters including mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and corporate governance. He has worked at Dickinson Wright for 37 years. Before joining the firm, High spent time clerking for the Ohio State Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court with the late Justice David D. Dowd, Jr. High then practiced law at a Toledo-based firm before moving to Dickinson Wright.
Throughout his distinguished career, High has counseled small and medium-sized entities in several industries to help with transactions ranging from $5 million to $150 million, along with Fortune 500 companies such as Johnson Controls and multiple other Tier One automotive suppliers. He also assisted many foreign entities with their U.S-based operations. He has a special affinity working for Canadian clients.
High joins other experienced and accomplished business law attorneys who received the Schulman Award, including many leading business law attorneys in Michigan he looked up to in the 1980s. Some of High’s most substantial contributions to the Business Law Section include roles as chair and council member of the Business Law Section and a founder of the Section’s Small Business Forum. He has repeatedly served as an instructor at the Section’s annual Business Law Institute as well.
“I remember attending the Section meetings when I was a young lawyer and (legal leaders and former Schulman recipients) Verne Hampton, Cy Moscow and others were leading the way,” High said. “The Section was still in its infancy then and I was amazed at the opportunities members had to help change (business) law for the better by being involved.”
High grew up outside of Cleveland before attending The College of Wooster for his bachelor’s degree and Duke Law School for his J.D. He quickly gravitated to the transactional side of business law because it gave him the opportunity to help clients move forward in a positive direction. “Litigation was never for me,” High said.
As a council member and Section chair in the mid-2000s, the Grosse Pointe Park resident was focused on expanding the Section’s reach, especially with small-to-mid sized firms outside of the Detroit and Grand Rapids markets. He presented educational sessions with colleagues as a spin-off of the Business Law Institute in such communities as Traverse City, Kalamazoo, and Midland.
While High helped to educate his legal colleagues as an instructor, he learned a few things along the way as well. One year he hosted an Institute training in Midland on November 15 and was surprised that only a handful of lawyers had shown up. A local attendee filled him in. “I learned that you never schedule anything in that part of the state on the first day of (firearm) deer hunting season,” High says. “We never made that mistake again.”
In addition to High’s work with the state bar’s Business Law Section, he has been involved in the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section and its Model Shareholder Agreement Task Force. High has served for over 10 years as President of the Canada – United States Business Association. He also is a former co-chair with the U.S. Law Firm Group’s Corporate and Securities Committee, a former member of the Business Advisory Board for the Institute of Continuing Legal Education, and a former member of the Alumni Board at The College of Wooster. He has served on the boards of Gleaners Community Food Bank and the Detroit Wine Organization.
As a result of his involvement in the Section, High recommends that business-focused attorneys of all ages throughout the state become involved to support their network building and continuing education. “It has been very useful to know the lawyers within the Section and I have actually completed many deals with them,” High said. “Having those strong relationships supported my practice and therefore my clients because it has made so many of these transactions smoother.”
The legal field also demands that its leaders set an example for future attorneys as well, High says. “We work in a profession where we have an obligation to give back and the entire process is very rewarding,” he added. “The people involved with the Section make it very easy for us all to benefit. Plus, it’s great to see the knowledge seamlessly passed from one generation to another.”
High will be introduced at the Schulman Award Ceremony, held in conjunction with the Section’s annual meeting on October 7 in Grand Rapids. Former junior high classmate and long-time Dickinson Wright colleague Timothy Stoepker will introduce High at the Annual Meeting.
The Business Law Section established the Stephen H. Schulman Outstanding Business Lawyer Award in 2006, to be presented annually. Past recipients of the Schulman Award include Cy Moscow, Martin Oetting, Hugh Makens, and Jim Bruno in 2006; Charlie McCallum and Verne Hampton in 2007; Ann Baker in 2008; Justin Klimko in 2009; Alex DeYonker in 2010; Jim Cambridge in 2011; Jeff Ammon in 2012; Dan Minkus in 2013; Diane Akers in 2014; Larry Schultz in 2015; Timothy Damschroder in 2016; John Trentacosta in 2017; Dee Dee Fuller in 2018; Erik Lark in 2019; and Douglas Toering in 2021 (there was no recipient in 2020 because of COVID-19).
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