Legal People ...

The journal Chambers High Net Worth (HNW), which evaluates legal and financial advisors worldwide, has ranked Bodman PLC at the highest “Band One” level for services to high net worth individuals and families and their closely held businesses.

In the newly released 2022 edition of Chambers HNW, Bodman is one of only three law firms based in Michigan, and the only one based in southeast Michigan, to be ranked in Band One for private wealth law.

Chambers HNW also recognizes individual attorneys who are viewed by their clients and peers as leaders in the field of private wealth law. Bodman attorneys listed in the 2022 edition include David P. Larsen, Andrew H. Curoe, and Kelly M. Burnell of the firm’s Detroit office and Anthony P. Cracchiolo and Marguerite Munson Lentz of the Troy office.  For 2022, Larsen is one of only nine Michigan attorneys ranked at the Band One level as an individual.

The attorneys in Bodman’s High Net Worth Group provide comprehensive legal services to affluent individuals and families. The firm’s clients include some of Michigan’s most well-known families, as well as business owners, executives, athletes, and other professionals seeking to minimize the tax burden on their heirs, make significant charitable donations, or complete complex personal transactions.

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Varnum partner Maureen Rouse-Ayoub has been named to Michigan Lawyers Weekly’s 2022 Class of Influential Women of Law. A labor and employment attorney with 30 years of experience, Rouse-Ayoub serves as the leader for Varnum’s Labor and Employment Practice Team.  A recognition awards luncheon will honor the Class of 2022 Influential Women of Law on September 23 at the Detroit Marriott Troy.  

In her practice, Rouse-Ayoub works with employers on all manner of labor and employment issues including labor-management relations, defending employment-related claims, and implementing and enforcing workplace policies. She has experience working with companies in a variety of industries including manufacturing, automotive, logistics and health care.

Rouse-Ayoub was recently recognized as a Client Service All-Star by BTI Consulting. She was the only labor and employment attorney from Michigan to be recognized in the 2022 report and one of just 48 attorneys from around the entire country. She is also regularly recognized by The Best Lawyers in America©, DBusiness Top Lawyers and Michigan Super Lawyers.

In addition to her practice, Rouse-Ayoub is a writer and speaker on a variety of labor and employment matters. She regularly provides programming to employers across the state through her work with the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and has been invited to speak multiple times to the Missouri Chamber of Commerce.

She is a member of the State Bar of Michigan Labor and Employment Section, the Oakland County Bar Association, and the Detroit Bar Association. She also serves on the Michigan Chamber of Commerce Health and Human Resources Committee.

Within the broader community, Rouse-Ayoub is active in Northern Michigan Adaptive Sports, a volunteer run non-profit organization that introduces people with disabilities to alpine skiing using adaptive equipment and/or special instruction.

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Dykema is proud to announce that Jeanne Whalen was selected to Michigan Lawyers Weekly’s 2022 “Influential Women of Law” list. Whalen will be honored at an awards luncheon and profiled in a special
supplement of Michigan Lawyers Weekly in September.

Whalen represents clients in general corporate, contracting, and acquisition matters, with an emphasis on technology and healthcare-related transactions. She leverages her computer science engineering background and her legal acumen to craft and prepare documentation tailored to the needs of each client and the nuances of each deal. Whalen has experience with information technology and business process outsourcing transactions, technology development and licensing agreements, and healthcare/technology reseller agreements.

Outside of her practice, Whalen is a council member and secretary of the Information Technology Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan and is also on the Board of Directors for ConnectUS, a Michigan-based program for adults with disabilities.

Whalen earned a law degree from the University of Toledo, and a B.S.E. from the University of Michigan.

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Butzel attorney and shareholder Debra A. Geroux will co-present a webinar titled, “HIPAA Compliance – A Case Study on Reporting Unauthorized Access by Former Employees,” during the State Bar of Michigan’s Health Care Law Section’s (virtual) Annual Meeting on Thursday, September 22. Geroux will co-present the program with Andrea Merritt, founder, Athena Compliance Partners and a supervisory special agent, FBI Detroit Field Office’s Health Care Fraud and Drug Division.

Geroux is a co-chair of Butzel’s Health Care Industry Team. She also is a member of the firm’s Cybersecurity and Privacy Specialty Team, Government & Internal Investigations Team, and Litigation and Dispute Resolution Team.

Her healthcare practice focuses on health care compliance, cybersecurity and privacy, and statutory reporting obligations. She also assists health care practitioners in defense of state and federal debarment, fraud, waste and abuse investigations and litigation, licensing and credentialing, government and commercial payor audits and a host of other health care issues.

Geroux has experience in supply chain and source contracting for a large Michigan-based health system, including negotiations of its IT contracts. In September 2018, she earned her Certified in Healthcare Privacy Compliance (CHPC) designation from the Compliance and Certification Board. She also holds a Certified in Healthcare Compliance (CHC) designation, which she received in November 2012. Her representative clients include individual practitioners and group practices, hospitals, community mental health authorities, home health agencies, pharmacies and pharmaceutical manufactures, ambulatory surgery centers, physical therapy centers, and DMEPOS suppliers.

Geroux’s professional memberships include: the American Bar Association (including the Health Law and Litigation Sections), the Federal Bar Association, the Oakland County Bar Association, and the Health Care Compliance Association. She assisted with numerous pro bono projects for Community Legal Services (n/k/a Michigan Community Resources), which resulted in the publication of various white papers and primers as well as a manual regarding malpractice and liability issues facing non-profit healthcare facilities such as free clinics, FQHCs and FQHC look-alikes and low-cost clinics.

Geroux is actively involved within the community. Currently, she serves on the Board of Directors for Honor Community Health, an FQHC serving Oakland County and as the vice president of the Board of Directors for the Historical Society for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Geroux also has served as an adjunct professor of Healthcare Law at Michigan State University College of Law and previously taught Healthcare Insurance Law in the Paralegal Program at Baker College of Auburn Hills.

Geroux has been recognized as a leading lawyer by the following:

• Michigan Lawyers Weekly Influential Women of Law Honoree, 2022

• Best Lawyers in America, Lawyer of the Year, Health Care Law, 2022

• Best Lawyers in America, Health Care Law, 2018 - 2022, Commercial Litigation, 2021-2022

• Michigan Super Lawyers, Health Care, 2017-2021

• DBusiness Top Lawyers in Metro Detroit, Health Care Law, 2012, 2014, 2017-2020

Geroux is a graduate of Michigan State University College of Law.  She received her Bachelor of Science from Michigan State University in 1988.

In addition, Butzel immigration law attorney Reginald A. Pacis was featured during a Michigan Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission (MAPAAC) immigration seminar on Saturday, August 13, in Warren.
Pacis focuses his practice in immigration law and has handled a variety of immigration matters including H-1B specialty occupation cases, L-1 Intracompany transfers, Labor Certification matters, Immigrant Visa Petitions/Adjustment of Status applications and interviews, TN Free trade cases, H-1B Department of Labor Investigations, I-9 employer verification compliance, and U.S. Port of Entry airport and land port interviews.

In 2021, Pacis was appointed a trustee to MAPAAC, which helps address the needs and concerns of the Asian Pacific American (APA) communities in Michigan. Previously, he was a commissioner to the MAPAAC.

Pacis was named Immigration Lawyer of the Year 2013 in the field of Immigration Law by The Best Lawyers in America and has been listed in Best Lawyers for several years.

He is a member of the American Bar Association, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), and the Samahang Pilipino Ng Oakland Filipino organization. He served two consecutive one-year terms from 2003 to 2005 as chairperson of the Michigan Chapter of AILA and was a member of the AILA National Board of Governors for those terms.

Pacis also served as vice chair (2008 to 2009) and later chair (2009-2010) of U.S. Customs and Border Protection AILA liaison committee; vice chair (2013 to 2014) of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Field Operations AILA liaison committee; Member (2014 to 2015) of the  U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services National Benefits Center AILA liaison committee; and has served as a member (2015) and later chair (2016) of the AILA Election committee. He has presented in a number of AILA Annual Conferences Nationally and Internationally from 2004 to 2019.

Pacis is a vice president and board member of the International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit. He also is a frequent speaker on immigration law matters locally and nationally.

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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 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 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 law degree. 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.

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Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer recently announced the appointment of Granner S. Ries to the Workers’ Disability Compensation Appeals Commission.

Ries is a current commissioner for the Workers’ Disability Compensation Appeals Commission and a former private practice attorney representing employees in worker’s compensation matters. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Inter Disciplinary Engineering from Purdue University and law degree from Wayne State University Law School. Ries is reappointed to represent an attorney with 5+ years in the field of workers’ compensation law. He will serve for a term commencing August 11 and expiring July 31, 2026.  

The?Workers’ Disability Compensation Appeals Commission created in Executive Order No. 2019-13 handles, processes, and decides appeals from orders of the director and the?workers’ compensation magistrates as provided for under the Worker’s Disability Compensation Act of 1969. The Commission may promulgate rules on administrative appellate procedure for purposes under the act.

This appointment is subject to the advice and consent of the Senate.  

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Kemp Klein Law Firm is proud to announce ten of the firm’s lawyers were recognized as 2022 Michigan Super Lawyers:

Leslie C. Banas – Business / Corporate Law
Joseph P. Buttiglieri – Estate & Trust Litigation
Ralph A. Castelli Jr. – Business / Corporate Law
Mark R. Filipp – Employment Litigation: Defense
Brian R. Jenney – Estate & Probate Law
Alan A. May – Estate & Probate Law
Brian H. Rolfe – Business Litigation
Amy A. Stawski – Family Law
Thomas V. Trainer – Elder Law
Austin W. Probst was named a 2022 Super Lawyers Rising Star – Estate & Probate Law

In addition, Austin W. Probst, an attorney at Kemp Klein Law Firm in Troy, has been named a 2022 Michigan Rising Star by Super Lawyers.

Probst assists clients with probate, elder law, Medicaid planning, estate planning and civil litigation. He is skilled in probate and trust administration and advises clients on important financial and emotional matters with a balance of knowledge, sensitivity, and precision.

Probst graduated from Wayne State University Law School and from Albion College. He is a member of the State Bar of Michigan and the Oakland County Bar Association.