LEGAL PEOPLE

Bowman and Brooke LLP recently announced the election of the following partners to serve as leaders within the Detroit office and on the firm’s Management Committee:

Jodi M. Schebel, managing partner
Jenny L. Zavadil, co-managing partner

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Plunkett Cooney associate attorney Claire D. Vergara was recently appointed to the executive board of the Michigan Asian-Pacific American Bar Association (MAPABA).

In addition, Vergara has been elected by her colleagues to serve as the board’s secretary. She will serve a one-year term on the board and in her executive leadership role.

As secretary, Vergara will assist in creating communications for the MAPABA social media platforms, promote new and renewed membership, and assist with planning bar association events, including its flagship celebration, the Lunar New Year Dinner.

Stemming from the civil rights trials arising out of the 1982 hate-crime murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit, MAPABA was formed to promote the legal interests of Michigan’s Asian-American community. The association’s mission is to promote improvements in the administration of justice, to advance relations between the legal profession and public, to secure social equality for Asian-Pacific Americans, to advocate the interests of Asian-Pacific Americans in the legal profession, and to promote equality and social justice for all people.

Vergara is a member of the Detroit office of Plunkett Cooney. She focuses her litigation practice in the areas of medical liability, trucking litigation, first-party No-Fault auto insurance law, and third-party motor vehicle negligence claims. She also has experience handling insurance-related matters involving personal injury and general negligence.

Licensed to practice law in the state and federal courts in Michigan, Vergara received her law degree from Western Michigan University Cooley Law School in 2012. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in 2009. Her professional organization involvement includes the State Bar of Michigan.

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Butzel attorney and shareholder Debra A. Geroux will be a featured presenter during the Health Care Compliance Association’s 27th Annual Compliance Institute on April 25 in Anaheim, CA. Geroux, a co-chair of Butzel’s Health Care Industry Team, will co-present a program titled, “2023 Update on Threat Actors and Best Practices for Detecting, Avoiding and/or Responding to a Cyber Incident.” Her co-presenter is Scott Wrobel, partner, N1 Discovery LLC, a leader in the fields of Digital Forensics, eDiscovery and Cyber Security.

Geroux’s healthcare practice focuses on health care compliance, cybersecurity and privacy, and statutory reporting obligations. She has assisted 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. She also 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.

She has been named to Best Lawyers in America, Lawyer of the Year, Health Care Law, 2022 and Best Lawyers in America, Health Care Law, 2018-2023 and Commercial Litigation, 2021-2023. Geroux was named as one of Michigan Lawyers Weekly “Influential Women of Law” 2022 honorees.  

In addition to her healthcare practice, Geroux has experience in general commercial civil litigation and appeals, as well as other regulatory matters, including issues pertaining to federal and state Disadvantaged Business Entity certifications and compliance, and cybersecurity incident response and reporting obligations.

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Wayne State University Law School Professor Kirsten Matoy Carlson has been selected to join the 2023-24 cohort of Faculty Scholars in The ABF/JPB Foundation Access to Justice Scholars Program.

The Access to Justice Scholars Program promotes the next generation of scholars and supports the infrastructure of the burgeoning field of access to justice. It brings together scholars from across the country from many disciplines, including law, political science, public health, and sociology, to foster discoveries and build theoretical and empirical understanding of what is currently happening with access to civil justice.

Carlson is one of six faculty scholars elected by an Advisory Committee from a highly qualified pool of applicants based on their diverse academic backgrounds and project proposals. The faculty scholars will each bring their expertise to further the program’s core mission: generating impactful research on access to civil justice and translating this research into practice. The scholars’ projects will produce both discoveries to inform social scientific understandings of access to civil justice and knowledge to inform real-world policy and reduce poverty and inequality in the United States and beyond. Carlson’s work will investigate the gaps in existing measures of outcomes and impacts for legal services delivery in Native communities in the United States.

Carlson is a leading authority on federal Indian law. Her interdisciplinary, empirical research investigates access to justice issues, including legal mobilization and law reform strategies used by Native peoples to reform law and policy effectively. Her work seeks to elevate Native voices in their quest for justice within the legal system. She integrates traditional legal analysis with social science methodologies for studying access to justice issues.

Carlson’s research has revealed how tribal governments and Native organizations influence the federal legislative process to affect real world change in the lives of Native people. It has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Levin Center at Wayne Law. Her articles have appeared in the Michigan Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, University of Colorado Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal, Harvard Journal on Legislation, Law and Society Review, and selected for presentation at the Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum at Harvard Law School.

Currently, Carlson teaches federal Indian law, legislation, legal change and civil procedure at Wayne Law. She has received the Donald H. Gordon Award for Excellence in Teaching and been selected by students as the Professor of the Year, First Year.

Carlson serves on the State Bar of Michigan Standing Committee on American Indian Law and is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Prior to joining Wayne Law, she advocated nationally and internationally to protect the rights of Indian nations as a staff attorney at the Indian Law Resource Center. She led the center’s advocacy efforts to restore criminal jurisdiction to Indian nations to end violence against women in Indian Country. She also clerked for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Diana E. Murphy, Eighth Circuit.

Carlson earned her law degree and a doctorate in political science from the University of Michigan, a master of arts degree in Maaori studies from the University of Wellington, New Zealand, and a bachelor’s in international studies from The Johns Hopkins University.

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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that LaDonna Logan has joined the department as an assistant attorney general and head of the Hate Crimes and Domestic Terrorism Unit.

Logan graduated with an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and earned her law degree from Wayne State University Law School. Upon graduation, Logan began her career with the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office where she served for 17 years and handled hundreds of homicide cases.

Within the prosecutor’s office, Logan served as the lead prosecutor on a variety of cases ranging from domestic violence to homicide. Logan received convictions in such notable cases as People v Maxwell Brack as well as People v Jimmy Pickett. She also served as the interim assistant prosecutor with the Fair Michigan Project, which investigates and prosecutes crimes that target the LGBTQ population.

Logan has created and collaborated on multiple trainings for prosecutors and law enforcement on a variety of topics including intimate partner violence, evidenced-based prosecutions, and obtaining and admitting evidence in homicide prosecutions.

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Nicole Joseph-Windecker was recently honored as one of two 2023 recipients of the Michigan Defense Trial Counsel’s (MDTC) Golden Gavel Award.

The Golden Gavel Award is presented to a lawyer who has practiced law for 10 years or less and who, according to the MDTC, “exemplifies significant contribution to professionalism and courtesy in the practice of law and by promoting the image and honorable reputation of the profession.”

Joseph-Windecker was presented with the award at the MDTC Legal Excellence 2023 Awards Dinner at the Gem Theatre in Detroit on March 16.

Joseph-Windecker is a senior associate with Foley, Baron, Metzger, & Juip PLLC. Her work includes defending health care organizations and professionals in complex medical malpractice claims, as well as other personal injury and insurance claims. She is a 2018 graduate of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.

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Miller Canfield is pleased to announce that Katina Gorman has joined the law firm’s Employment and Labor Group in its office in Troy.

Gorman’s practice focuses on employee benefits and ERISA. She is well-versed in drafting plan documents, trust documents, summary plan descriptions, plan and trust amendments, policies and procedures, SMMs, SBCs, and other participant notifications and communications related to benefit plans.

Additionally, Gorman is experienced in negotiating service provider contracts, investment management agreements and business associate agreements. She has expertise with the administration, design, and operation of Taft-Hartley multiemployer fringe benefit funds including: health and welfare funds; defined benefit pension funds; defined contribution pension funds; 401(k) funds; VEBAs; and other ancillary fringe benefit funds.

Licensed in Michigan and Illinois, Gorman is a graduate of the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law and the University of Michigan. She is a member of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and serves on the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Detroit Summer Camp Board of Directors.

Miller Canfield is also pleased to announce that Wendy Wrosch Richards will serve as the resident director of the firm’s Detroit office.

Richards is Miller Canfield’s pro bono counsel and a member of the firm’s Litigation and Dispute Resolution Group. As the leader of the firm’s pro bono initiatives, Richards has taken what was an already active pro bono team and turned it into a nationally recognized program. Her efforts have earned her an invitation to serve on the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Executive Committee alongside her peers from firms such as Kirkland & Ellis, Ballard Spahr, Arnold & Porter, Hogan Lovells, and other firms that are among the largest and most prestigious in the country.

Richards is active in professional and civic groups such as the State Bar of Michigan Access to Justice Statewide Steering Committee, Goodwill Detroit, and the Association of Pro Bono Counsel, where she has served as the co-chair of its Voting Rights Task Force for over six years. Richards also co-chairs Miller Canfield’s Election Law group.

Richards succeeds Joseph Vernon who is stepping aside after serving as resident director since 2018.

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Maddin Hauser is pleased to announce that Michigan Lawyers Weekly selected Executive Committee member Martin S. Frenkel as a “Go To” lawyer in construction law.

In addition to his busy practice, Frenkel is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee, serves as co-chair of the Financial Services and Real Property Litigation group, and is actively involved with the firm’s strategic planning and marketing.

As a distinct and unique legal discipline, construction has been at the heart of Frenkel’s practice for decades. He also routinely represents mortgage lenders and servicers, depository institutions, real estate developers, title insurance companies, and commercial landlords and property owners.

Frenkel navigates clients through all areas of construction practice including contract drafting, litigation, arbitration, and mediation concerning a wide range of construction-related issues. He has handled matters involving public and private works, bid protests, contract defaults, professional liability, construction defects, extra work claims, changed condition claims, delay claims, mechanic’s liens and stop notice claims, surety bond claims, and construction related insurance claims.