Daily Briefs

Area firm earns top tier ranking


Kienbaum Opperwall Hardy & Pelton, a Birmingham based law firm, has been named by Chambers USA’s Client Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers for Business as Michigan’s top labor and employment law practice.

“Chambers has characterized our firm as the ‘preeminent labor and employment boutique offering sophisticated counsel to a range of domestic and international clients,’” said a spokesman for Kienbaum Opperwall Hardy & Pelton.
“We are the only Michigan firm awarded Chambers’ top tier ranking.

“Although there are countless organizations today that bestow superlative recognitions on lawyers and law firms based on word-of-mouth and pay-for-play, Chambers is the only law firm ranking organization that comprehensively and reliably bases its rankings on actual client and peer evaluations.”

The Birmingham firm is located at 280 North Old Woodward, Suite 400, and represents management clients in all aspects of labor and employment law.

 

Appeals court won’t review Mateen Cleaves sex assault case
 

FLINT, Mich. (AP) — An appeals court says it won’t review a judge’s decision to reinstate sexual assault charges against former Michigan State basketball star Mateen Cleaves.

Three Michigan Court of Appeals judges denied Cleaves’ request in an order dated Monday. The case is expected to return to court in Genesee County for trial.

Genesee County Judge Archie Hayman in April reinstated the case against 39-year-old Cleaves, who faces charges including unlawful imprisonment and second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Cleaves is accused of assaulting a woman after a charity golf event and a visit to a Flint-area bar in 2015.

 

Man denied murder charge appeal in bike crash case
 

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) — The Michigan Court of Appeals will not hear an appeal of second-degree murder charges against a man involved in a fatal bicycle crash last year.

Chief Clerk Jerome Zimmer wrote July 28 that Charles Pickett Jr.’s leave to appeal was denied “for failure to persuade the Court of the need for immediate appellate review.”

Pickett is charged with five counts of murder, five counts of driving while intoxicated and four counts of reckless driving related to the June 2016 crash. Police say he plowed into a group of bicyclists in Cooper Township, killing five and injuring four.

Defense attorney Alan Koenig argued in the April application that the prosecution’s evidence wasn’t enough to send Pickett to trial for second-degree murder.
Pickett’s trial is scheduled for Sept. 19.

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