Daily Briefs (Jan. 4)

Gov. Snyder meets with senior staff as new job in Lansing begins
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Rick Snyder says it's time to "really roll up our sleeves and get to work" as he starts the first week in his new job.

He met Monday morning with more than a dozen senior staff members.

Afterward, he was to meet separately with budget director John Nixon and then with Michael Finney, head of the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

Snyder and many of his top staff members spent Sunday moving into their new offices.

The Republican governor plans to issue executive orders this week formalizing some of his organizational moves, such as splitting the departments of Natural Resources and Environmental Quality.

He came to the meeting wearing his trademark look, a blue button-down shirt and no tie.

Honigman named 2010 Law Firm of the Year for support of CLR
Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP has been named the 2010 “Law Firm of the Year” by Community Legal Resources. The mission of CLR is to support and empower nonprofit community organizations in Michigan that serve low-income individuals and communities, with an emphasis on community economic development, by providing pro bono legal services and technical assistance.

According to Sara Jean Baker, communications and development manager for CLR, “Honigman has always been an important partner to CLR, but the work and commitment demonstrated this year truly needs to be honored. The firm has increased the number and type of referrals accepted, is stepping up in accepting referrals from outside SE Michigan, and made massive contributions to both the ROOF and FLOOR legal teams, which is noteworthy.”

The pre-foreclosure agreement Foreclosure Limitation, Owner Occupancy Retention (FLOOR) and the post-foreclosure agreement Retaining Occupancy on Foreclosure (Roof) are tools available to lenders, servicers, owners, tenants and housing advocates to work out arrangements for continuing occupancy of affected single-family residential properties in order to reduce community wide vacancies caused by foreclosure.

Honigman Real Estate Partner Mitchell R. Meisner serves on the CLR Board of Directors and chaired the legal teams that drafted the FLOOR and ROOF agreements. I. W. Winsten and Nicholas B. Gorga, both partners in Honigman’s Litigation Department, serve as co-chairs of the firm’s Pro Bono Committee. Other attorneys involved in the project and their Honigman office location include: Joscelyn C. Boucher, Kalamazoo; Audrey P. DiMarzo, Ann Arbor; Rebecca L. Donnini, Bloomfield Hills; Thomas W. Forster II, Bloomfield Hills; Margaret E. Greene, Detroit; Karl A. Hochkammer, Detroit; Ann T. Hollenbeck, Detroit; Karissa M. Holmes, Detroit; Kara L. Hoorn, Kalamazoo; Barbara A. Kaye, Ann Arbor; Donald J. Kunz, Detroit; Jeffrey H. Kuras, Detroit; A’Jené M. Maxwell, Detroit; Kenneth J. Phillips, Detroit; G. Scott Romney, Detroit; Jill S. Schloff, Bloomfield Hills; Abby M. Stover, Detroit; Kimberly A. Yourchock, Detroit.

In 2008, Honigman was named Pro Bono Law Firm of the year by the Legal Aid and Defender Association, Inc, Michigan’s largest provider of free civil legal services to low-income resident serving metropolitan Detroit.

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