Two judges were honored by the Jewish Bar Association of Michigan at JBAM’s Annual Awards Dinner on Thursday, May 23, at the Somerset Inn in Troy.

Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Lorie Savin received JBAM’s “Ruth Bader Ginsburg Champion of Justice Award.” U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith, Eastern District of Michigan, was honored with the “Avern Cohn Lifetime Achievement Award.”

Savin, a graduate of the University of Michigan and Wayne State University Law School, serves on Oakland County Circuit Court’s Family Division which handles domestic abuse and neglect, and delinquency cases. “I love my job — it’s one of the best things I could ever do,” she said.

Savin’s lifelong quest is advocating for the needs of children caught up in domestic disputes.

“My parents got divorced when I was very young,” she said. “When we were in court, I was thinking that my dad had a lawyer who talked to the judge, and so did my mom. I wished I had a lawyer, too, to tell my side.

“It was then when I decided I wanted to be a lawyer for kids,” Savin said. “My goal was to give kids a voice in the process. Over time, this expanded to also include not just kids, but those who are under-represented, like minorities, the disadvantaged, and those who need legal aid.”

Savin served 18 years with the Oakland County Friend of the Court, assisting in cases involving custody, parenting time, and child or spousal support. She was elected to the Circuit Court in 2020.

“My biggest strength, and weakness, is that I’m extremely motivated to do what’s best for families, especially when children are involved,” she said.

“It’s overwhelmingly wonderful to be recognized for doing my job by such an excellent organization as JBAM,” Savin added.

Goldsmith has been a judge for two decades — beginning in 2004 on the Oakland County Circuit Court bench, and since 2010 as an active status judge in federal court, an appointee of President Barack Obama.

Like Savin, Goldsmith traces his fascination with the law to an early age. Growing up in Detroit, he dreamed of becoming a judge. As a young teen, he would take the bus downtown to sit in the local and federal courthouses. He marveled at the ornate federal court building. “It was like a cathedral,” he said.

At the University of Michigan, he was an Angell Scholar with a 4.0 GPA and went on to Harvard Law School. After that, he spent more than 16 years as an associate and partner at Honigman, Miller, Schwartz, and Cohn in Detroit.

A longtime friend, attorney Jeffrey Appel said, “If you could build a federal judge in a laboratory, it would look exactly like Mark Goldsmith.

“Mark’s colleagues on the federal bench respect his intellect, his judicial demeanor and his objectivity. As a judge, his decisions are always clear, well-reasoned and written or stated in an elegant manner.
“Every litigant and attorney that appears before Mark knows, whether they won or lost, they had a full, fair and impartial hearing,” Appel said.

Other awardees at the JBAM dinner included scholarship winners Amanda Igra of Michigan State University Law School and Hannah Passer of University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. JBAM Vice President Jordan Zuppke, of Zupac Law, received the Volunteer of the Year Award.

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