Legal People

Sandra D. Glazier, a shareholder of the Lipson Neilson law firm, has been inducted as a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America (LCA).

An attorney for more than 35 years, Glazier is known for her expertise and successful track-record in probate litigation, estate planning, trust and estate administration, and family law matters. The cases Glazier works on tend to be very complex and require technical as well as legal expertise. She has represented contestants and proponents of estate planning documents, as well as fiduciaries, in significant trust litigation proceedings and parties in complex divorce proceedings.

An AV Preeminent® rated attorney, Glazier is recognized nationally for her accomplishments and expertise in estate planning and probate litigation and is routinely requested to speak at some of the leading legal industry conferences across the country. She also received Bloomberg Tax’s 2018 Estates, Gifts and Trust Contributing Author of the Year Award and the Trust & Estates Magazine’s 2018 Author Award for Thought Leadership. She has been selected as a “Michigan Super Lawyer” by Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of information for the legal industry and has been recognized as a “Top Lawyer” by DBusiness, in the areas of probate, estate and family law.

Glazier has had numerous articles published by some of the legal industry’s leading publications, and has taught “Valuation for Federal, Estate and Gift Tax Purposes” in a Masters’ level course.

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Miller Canfield is pleased to announce that Susanna Brennan has joined the firm as its manager of attorney recruiting. She is based in the firm’s Detroit office and is responsible for planning, implementing and managing all aspects of strategic attorney recruiting and integration. The announcement was made by CEO Michael McGee.

Before joining Miller Canfield, Brennan worked at General Motors, where she led and collaborated on projects focused on employee development, engagement, onboarding and resource management for more than 300 members of GM’s global legal staff. Before that, she was a senior legal recruiter for Kelly Services, an HR generalist at Media Genesis in Troy, and an associate attorney at law firms in Detroit and Seattle.

Brennan served as chair of the State Bar of Michigan’s Information Technology Law Section from 2015 to 2016 and is active in the Detroit Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), InFORUM Michigan and the Southeast Michigan Recruiter Connection.

Brennan is a licensed attorney who earned her law degree and M.B.A. from the University of Oregon and her B.A. from Michigan State University.

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Heather M. Washington joins Secrest Wardle’s Troy office as an associate. Washington is a member of the firm’s Motor Vehicle Litigation and Premises Liability Practice Groups. She has experience representing local government in misdemeanor and civil infraction cases from arraignment to disposition. Washington has also worked as a special assignment prosecutor in a contractual unit for Wayne County where she handled malicious destruction of property felony cases that were taken to jury trial.

Washington earned her law degree from Western Michigan University Cooley Law School and received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Wayne State University. She is licensed to practice law in the state of Michigan and is a member of the State Bar of Michigan’s Criminal Law, Litigation, and Young Lawyers sections. Additionally, Washington is an executive board member of both the Detroit Bar Association and the D. Augustus Straker Bar Association.

Secrest Wardle also congratulates Nicole C. Joseph and Ashley E. Monticciolo on passing the bar exam.  They have both accepted associate positions with the firm.
Secrest Wardle is a law firm specializing in defense litigation and counsel for insurance, municipal, and commercial clients headquartered in Troy with additional offices in Grand Rapids and Lansing.