The new president of the Detroit Bar Association, Tiffany Ellis (right) is pictured with her predecessor, Zenell Brown, at the DBA’s annual meeting earlier this summer.
By Jim Stickford
Legal News
For Capac native Tiffany Ellis, the road to becoming 2024 president of the Detroit Bar Association (DBA) was a winding one.
Ellis, 43, didn’t start out as a lawyer. She studied journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. That led to a job covering the Missouri statehouse, which, in turn, led to taking a job in politics.
“I spent most of my 20s working for political campaigns,” Ellis said. “I came back to Michigan in 2004 to work for the House Dems and then went to New Jersey where I ended up being communications director and later chief of staff for the former Office of Child Advocates.”
Ellis then decided to go to law school and received her degree from Washington University in St. Louis. After law school, she worked for Staci Yandle, who would become a federal judge in the Southern District of Illinois.
“The second summer after law school I also worked as a public defender in San Diego,” Ellis said. “In 2012, I decided to come home to Michigan and moved into the Brush Park neighborhood in Detroit.”
Even though she grew up in Capac, which is in the Thumb area of the state, Ellis said she always loved the city of Detroit. In high school, she would take her friends to the city every chance she got.
“After living in seven states, moving to Detroit was like coming home,” Ellis said. “There is heart and soul to this city. The people have a pride and a perseverance that cannot be matched.”
Ellis said that she doesn’t come from a family of lawyers or politicians, but she “always had questions” and law school was an avenue that could help her get the answers she was looking for.
Ellis is a firm believer in public service, which she says is why she joined the Detroit Bar Association and is an executive board member of the Michigan Association for Justice. She also serves on the boards of Covenant House of Michigan and Wayne County CASA.
“My parents didn’t teach me politics,” Ellis said. “They taught me values and I use those lessons in my life and my practice. What my parents taught me and all the things I did before becoming a lawyer inform my legal work. I do impact litigation. That is my own term of art. I work with other attorneys to help protect consumers and survivors who have had their rights violated and we view ourselves as sort of private attorneys general who work on behalf of people to help enforce civil laws.”
Ellis is a partner for the law firm of Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise, which is headquartered in New Orleans. It has 10 locations across the country, and she is in the process of setting up the Detroit office.
Prior to joining Peiffer Wolf, Ellis was at Weitz & Luxenberg PC in Detroit and worked as Of Counsel Attorney at Seikaly & Stewart, P.C. in Farmington Hills.
In 2015, she served as project manager of Doe, et. al. v. MDOC, a lawsuit where she assisted in the representation of children who have been incarcerated in adult prisons and sexually abused or assaulted because of Department of Correction failures.
She managed and analyzed high volume, multimedia productions from the Michigan Department of Corrections, and negotiated production of additional key metadata initially not requested.
She led intensive ESI protocol discussions with the Michigan Attorney General's office and coordinated and planned 30(b)(6) discovery depositions regarding numerous computer systems and software.
“I got to work with brilliant attorneys in this case,” Ellis said. “At the end of the day, I feel society needs to treat everyone fairly, and these youths were not being treated right because the Department of Corrections was not taking care to remove them from the presence of hardened criminals.”
Ellis is involved in Multi-District Litigation (MDL), which can be described as a special federal legal procedure designed to speed the process for handling complex cases with numerous plaintiffs making similar claims, such as air disaster litigation or complex product liability suits.
Ellis said she has long believed that people shouldn’t depend solely on the government to protect their rights and that there is a role for attorneys to act as protectors in civil cases.
Which is why, as newly elected president of the Detroit Bar, she would like the organization to get attorneys from the region together to work on behalf of the public.
“When I am asked how many people belong to the DBA, I say not enough. I would like to increase membership. You don’t have to practice or live in Detroit to belong. I see it as we’re all ‘Detroit’ lawyers,” Ellis said. “I am taking over from Zenell Brown, who is incredible. She is the Region 1 Administrator for the Michigan Supreme Court and previously long-served as Executive Court Administrator for Wayne County’s 3rd Circuit Court in Detroit. She has a way of bringing people into conversations they didn’t know they wanted to be a part of. As former president of DBA, she is co-chair, with me, of strategic planning at the DBA.”
Ellis said one goal of strategic planning is to expand the DBA’s pro bono services, and maybe even offer “low bono” services to those in need. She defines low bono as helping people who may fall above federal guidelines for free assistance but are struggling and need legal assistance. The idea is to provide legal help at an affordable rate.
Low bono can also be aimed at lawyers who want to do more pro bono work but can’t work for free. With low bono, they can get some payment, Ellis explained.
“This can fill a gap in the legal world where people who don’t normally get help can receive assistance,” Ellis said.
Ellis’s term expires in July of 2025. Her successor will be Rogers Meyers, a defense attorney. She currently lives in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, in a new building located around where right field used to be at Tiger Stadium.
She lives with her partner Moe Ayoub, who is the father of two children, ages 2 and 4.
“I am glad to have the opportunity to be president of the DBA and help attorneys expand their services beyond just clients to help people in the larger community,” Ellis said.
“I am only the 10th woman to be president of the DBA, but I think there will be a lot more in the future. I am proud to be able to serve the DBA and the public.”
Legal News
For Capac native Tiffany Ellis, the road to becoming 2024 president of the Detroit Bar Association (DBA) was a winding one.
Ellis, 43, didn’t start out as a lawyer. She studied journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. That led to a job covering the Missouri statehouse, which, in turn, led to taking a job in politics.
“I spent most of my 20s working for political campaigns,” Ellis said. “I came back to Michigan in 2004 to work for the House Dems and then went to New Jersey where I ended up being communications director and later chief of staff for the former Office of Child Advocates.”
Ellis then decided to go to law school and received her degree from Washington University in St. Louis. After law school, she worked for Staci Yandle, who would become a federal judge in the Southern District of Illinois.
“The second summer after law school I also worked as a public defender in San Diego,” Ellis said. “In 2012, I decided to come home to Michigan and moved into the Brush Park neighborhood in Detroit.”
Even though she grew up in Capac, which is in the Thumb area of the state, Ellis said she always loved the city of Detroit. In high school, she would take her friends to the city every chance she got.
“After living in seven states, moving to Detroit was like coming home,” Ellis said. “There is heart and soul to this city. The people have a pride and a perseverance that cannot be matched.”
Ellis said that she doesn’t come from a family of lawyers or politicians, but she “always had questions” and law school was an avenue that could help her get the answers she was looking for.
Ellis is a firm believer in public service, which she says is why she joined the Detroit Bar Association and is an executive board member of the Michigan Association for Justice. She also serves on the boards of Covenant House of Michigan and Wayne County CASA.
“My parents didn’t teach me politics,” Ellis said. “They taught me values and I use those lessons in my life and my practice. What my parents taught me and all the things I did before becoming a lawyer inform my legal work. I do impact litigation. That is my own term of art. I work with other attorneys to help protect consumers and survivors who have had their rights violated and we view ourselves as sort of private attorneys general who work on behalf of people to help enforce civil laws.”
Ellis is a partner for the law firm of Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise, which is headquartered in New Orleans. It has 10 locations across the country, and she is in the process of setting up the Detroit office.
Prior to joining Peiffer Wolf, Ellis was at Weitz & Luxenberg PC in Detroit and worked as Of Counsel Attorney at Seikaly & Stewart, P.C. in Farmington Hills.
In 2015, she served as project manager of Doe, et. al. v. MDOC, a lawsuit where she assisted in the representation of children who have been incarcerated in adult prisons and sexually abused or assaulted because of Department of Correction failures.
She managed and analyzed high volume, multimedia productions from the Michigan Department of Corrections, and negotiated production of additional key metadata initially not requested.
She led intensive ESI protocol discussions with the Michigan Attorney General's office and coordinated and planned 30(b)(6) discovery depositions regarding numerous computer systems and software.
“I got to work with brilliant attorneys in this case,” Ellis said. “At the end of the day, I feel society needs to treat everyone fairly, and these youths were not being treated right because the Department of Corrections was not taking care to remove them from the presence of hardened criminals.”
Ellis is involved in Multi-District Litigation (MDL), which can be described as a special federal legal procedure designed to speed the process for handling complex cases with numerous plaintiffs making similar claims, such as air disaster litigation or complex product liability suits.
Ellis said she has long believed that people shouldn’t depend solely on the government to protect their rights and that there is a role for attorneys to act as protectors in civil cases.
Which is why, as newly elected president of the Detroit Bar, she would like the organization to get attorneys from the region together to work on behalf of the public.
“When I am asked how many people belong to the DBA, I say not enough. I would like to increase membership. You don’t have to practice or live in Detroit to belong. I see it as we’re all ‘Detroit’ lawyers,” Ellis said. “I am taking over from Zenell Brown, who is incredible. She is the Region 1 Administrator for the Michigan Supreme Court and previously long-served as Executive Court Administrator for Wayne County’s 3rd Circuit Court in Detroit. She has a way of bringing people into conversations they didn’t know they wanted to be a part of. As former president of DBA, she is co-chair, with me, of strategic planning at the DBA.”
Ellis said one goal of strategic planning is to expand the DBA’s pro bono services, and maybe even offer “low bono” services to those in need. She defines low bono as helping people who may fall above federal guidelines for free assistance but are struggling and need legal assistance. The idea is to provide legal help at an affordable rate.
Low bono can also be aimed at lawyers who want to do more pro bono work but can’t work for free. With low bono, they can get some payment, Ellis explained.
“This can fill a gap in the legal world where people who don’t normally get help can receive assistance,” Ellis said.
Ellis’s term expires in July of 2025. Her successor will be Rogers Meyers, a defense attorney. She currently lives in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, in a new building located around where right field used to be at Tiger Stadium.
She lives with her partner Moe Ayoub, who is the father of two children, ages 2 and 4.
“I am glad to have the opportunity to be president of the DBA and help attorneys expand their services beyond just clients to help people in the larger community,” Ellis said.
“I am only the 10th woman to be president of the DBA, but I think there will be a lot more in the future. I am proud to be able to serve the DBA and the public.”
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