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I have been mesmerized by space travel since its beginning and copies of the famous photo, Earthrise, taken by Astronaut William (Bill) Anders on December 24, 1968, has been hanging on the walls of my office and home since it was distributed.

I have been mesmerized by space travel since its beginning and copies of the famous photo, Earthrise, taken by Astronaut William (Bill) Anders on December 24, 1968, has been hanging on the walls of my office and home since it was distributed.

I have never tired looking at it. It continually leaves me in awe.  The beauty!

Thus, I could feel my heart beat increase as I watched Artemis II take off for its 10-mission around the Moon. And I wished the four astronauts on board Godspeed.

But, at the same time, I have been distressed by a contradiction and irony.

Here we are working to make the unhabitable (the Moon, Mars) habitable for humans while we making the habitable (Earth) uninhabitable.

While the first objective is decades away, the latter is approaching quickly; it is a fait accompli; there is no avoiding the disaster for the planet.  

The actor, William Shatner, who, at age 90, was on a sub-orbital space flight -- Blue Origin NS-18 -- in 2021, was interviewed as Artemis took off, and he explained how much he was moved by the beauty of the Earth.

Then, he added quickly, how depressed and dismayed he was at the speed with which are destroying it.

Here is a short list of what we face:

--First, population growth. You don’t have to be a scientist to recognize that, given the problems we are experiencing at eight billion on the planet, any growth will be devastating.

--It is too late to cool the Earth. The present temperature increases are caked-in.  Even passionate environmentalists have accepted an increase of temperatures to 1.5° Celsius which is about 0.4 tenths more than we have experienced since the beginning of the pre-industrial revolution (around the mid-1800s).

--We can’t stop the melting of glaciers and the subsequent rising of the oceans that are drowning populated islands as I write this.

--Rainforests, the “lungs of the Earth,” so vital to our survival because they absorb CO2 are being destroyed daily. Haiti alone has lost 98 percent of its rainforests.

--Then we have water, soil, air pollution not to mention water shortages in much of the world. Eight hundred million people – 1 in 10 -- do not have access to clean water.

--More than a million animals and plants are threatened with extinction, according to scientific studies.

---Plastics are suffocating us. In 1950, we manufactured two million tons of plastic. We are approaching the manufacture of 500 million tons -- that’s 500 million tons. Microplastics have been found in human brains and blood. We are a Great Lakes state and 22 million tons of plastic are dumped in these lakes annually. Seventeen billion pounds go into the oceans each year.

--We cannot, it’s impossible, to cleanup our oceans, lakes, streams and other waterways. One scientist, testing a new submarine, found plastic trash bags at 36,000 feet below the surface, the deepest anyone has ever gone.

If you drive an SUV, consider it contains about 400 pounds of plastic.

--We are experiencing rage fires and wind storms around the world, the likes of which we have never seen before.

And, I might stress, these are just a few highlights -- more accurately, lowlights.

(Incidentally, we are polluting space as well. NASA itself has stated that there are 6,000 tons of materials in Low Earth Orbit, making it the “world’s largest garbage dump.” The International Space Station has had to initiate evasive maneuvers on many occasions to avoid crashing into this “junk.”)
Anyone who believes we can solve all the problems makes Pollyanna look like a pessimist.

It is not in the cards. The political will does not exist to tackle these issues nor do the economics.

There have been 30 annual international environmental summits called the Conference of Partners (COP) since 1995 and each year the environmental situation was worse than the previous meeting.

Lots of passionate speeches, promises and pledges.  Never any follow up.

In 1994, Carl Edward Sagan, astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, and science communicator, wrote a book, “Pale Blue Dot:  A Vision of the Human Future in Space” (Random House).  In it, he included a photo of the Earth taken, in 1990, from some 3.75 billion miles from Earth by the space probe, Voyager 1. The Earth appears the size of a pinhead. Sagan concludes his description of the photo with the following:

“There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.  To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

Sadly, Sagan’s hope and wish have fallen on deaf ears.

In his essay, he also observed: “In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”

How right he was. There is a word for doing it to ourselves: Suicide.
 
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 Berl Falbaum has written extensively about climate change, and the environment.

Practicing law is demanding — long hours, unforgiving deadlines, and high stakes. Most lawyers expect those pressures as part of the calling. Conflict is also inherent to the work. 

Practicing law is demanding — long hours, unforgiving deadlines, and high stakes. Most lawyers expect those pressures as part of the calling. Conflict is also inherent to the work. 

However, incivility and unprofessionalism should not be. Such conduct adds a weight that should never be part of the job. We understand that disagreement and advocacy are part of the profession, but what should be professional disagreements too often become personal attacks, and what should be intentional advocacy can become performative. As professionals, we must reconsider what zeal in advocacy actually requires. 

It is easier to see incivility in someone else’s conduct, but the only behavior lawyers can control is their own. Culture shifts one lawyer at a time, through the thousands of choices we make and how we show up in our professional work each day. Have you ever walked out of a conversation wishing for a do-over? 
Perhaps it was a curt reply, an email sent too quickly, or a defensive explanation. These moments remind us that incivility and unprofessionalism can be subtle and unintentional, shaped by pressure more than malice. One of my favorite quotes is from psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, who wrote, 
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Frankl reminds us that there will always be events that trigger us. Our power lies in pausing and considering our choice: Will we react impulsively or respond with reflection and intention? This practice, repeated one lawyer and one moment at a time, is how our profession grows in civility and professionalism.  

Reaction vs. Response  

A critical difference exists between reaction and response. A reaction is immediate and driven by the nervous system’s urge to reduce tension. Reaction narrows options and can escalate conflict. A response, on the other hand, includes a pause for reflection and consideration of objectives, tone, and long-term consequences. Response widens options and better serves the client’s interests. 

The “space” Frankl describes is what psychology calls “the window of tolerance,” a framework developed by psychiatrist Daniel Siegel that describes our capacity to pause, think clearly, regulate emotions, and act in alignment with our values. Outside of that window, we move into fight, flight, or shutdown, and our response yields to our survival reflex. Legal practice routinely pushes lawyers to the edges of that window with contentious hearings, demanding clients, and relentless deadlines. Without awareness, reaction can become our default. 

Correcting a Misconception 

The phrase “zealous advocacy” has taken on a life of its own in legal culture. Many lawyers have come to hear “zeal” as permission for aggression, hostility, or winning at any cost, often at the expense of civility and professionalism. However, the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct never use the term “zealous advocate.” The comment to Rule 1.3 on diligence states only that a lawyer should act “with commitment and dedication to the interests of the client and with zeal in advocacy on the client’s behalf.” 

Zeal, by ordinary definition, means eagerness and enthusiastic interest in pursuit of a cause. Advocacy is the act of supporting a cause. Considered together, zealous advocacy is simply the enthusiastic pursuit of a client’s cause. That pursuit exists within the framework of ethics and professionalism. Within that framework, civility is not a courtesy but a professional discipline, and ethics calls us to to choose intention over impulsiveness.  When zeal is misunderstood as aggression rather than enthusiasm, self-interest can replace client interest.  That posture is not advocacy. It is reaction misnamed as zeal. 

A pause does not betray diligence. It protects it by preventing errors, aligning action with client objectives, ensuring competent representation, and promoting thoughtful execution. As lawyers, our ethics are guided by the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct, which encompass core principles such as competence, diligence, candor, and fairness.  

These duties require professional judgment. A pause supports that judgment by creating space to consider obligations, options, and consequences and to notice whether we are serving the client’s interests or protecting our own comfort and image. The standard in our rules is reasonable promptness, not immediacy, and certainly not impulsive promptness. The canon implies deliberation. Incivility and unprofessional conduct often grow from reactivity rather than reflection. The pause helps us meet our ethical obligations. The challenge is learning how to widen the space when pressure narrows it. 

Widening Our Window 

Creating space is a practical skill. We widen our window of tolerance through ongoing awareness, reflection, and practice. We can practice in small, ordinary ways: delaying an email rather than pressing send in the heat of the moment, pausing to ask whether our conduct serves the client’s interests, using a brief recess to allow emotions to settle before proceeding, and, when all else fails, pausing to breathe. Slow, steady breathing signals safety to the nervous system, calming the stress response and allowing the thinking parts of the brain to come back online. One effective breathing technique to try is box breathing: inhale for four counts, hold for four, exhale for four, and hold again for four, like tracing the four sides of a box. Even 30 seconds of intentional breathing can change the course of an interaction. 

Practicing True Zeal 

Leadership in law is rarely dramatic. More often, it looks like steadiness in ordinary moments. It is the discipline to remain calm when provoked, the resolve to do what is right rather than what is easy, and the wisdom to know when to speak and when to remain silent. 

Lawyers shape the tone of litigation, courtrooms, and negotiations through their conduct. That influence calls us to be pillars of the profession, leaders who bring enthusiasm to their work while meeting pressure with professionalism, fortitude, and response over reaction. This form of leadership models true zeal in advocacy. 

Harper Lee’s character Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird exemplifies zealous advocacy in action. When he sits outside the jail to protect his client, he is calm, collected, and unwavering in the face of threats. His courage is not theatrical; it is regulated and principled. The jail scene is only one of many moments in which Atticus demonstrates zealous advocacy — from his careful preparation to his respectful engagement — and unwavering fidelity to the rule of law. His conduct demonstrates what zeal in advocacy rightly means: advocacy anchored in enthusiasm, civility, and professionalism. 

When we choose response over reaction, we show colleagues, clients, and young lawyers that zealous advocacy is not loud, hostile, or aggressive. We model that strength can be calm, that professionalism can be firm without being harsh, and that passion for a client’s cause can coexist with respect for everyone involved. Our profession needs more people like Atticus Finch, advocates who prove day after day that true zeal is deliberate, principled, and humane.
 
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Sarah E. Kuchon, of Hohauser Kuchon, is the 93rd president of the Oakland County Bar Association.

When your home or business suffers direct physical damage—whether from fire, water, or another covered event—you expect your insurance company to evaluate your claim fairly and promptly pay what is owed. But many policyholders are caught off guard when the insurer requests an Examination Under Oath as part of the claim's process.

By Rabih Hamawi

When your home or business suffers direct physical damage—whether from fire, water, or another covered event—you expect your insurance company to evaluate your claim fairly and promptly pay what is owed. But many policyholders are caught off guard when the insurer requests an Examination Under Oath as part of the claim's process.

What is an Examination Under Oath (EUO)? 

An EUO is a formal proceeding where the insurance company questions you about your claim while you are under oath. 

Think of it as similar to a deposition—but it happens during the claim's process, not a lawsuit.

What to Expect:

You are placed under oath (sworn to tell the truth).

The insurer’s attorney asks detailed questions.

A court reporter records everything.

Your answers can be used to approve or deny your claim.
 
Why do insurance companies request an EUO? 

Insurance companies request an EUO as part of their investigation process, particularly when a claim involves complex facts or raises questions that require clarification. The primary goal is to verify the details of the loss, assess the accuracy and consistency of the policyholder’s statements, obtain information about damages sought, and evaluate overall credibility. In many cases, insurers also use the EUO to gather information that could justify limiting or denying coverage under the policy.

An EUO is more likely to be requested in situations involving large or high-value claims, where the financial exposure is significant.

 It may also be triggered by inconsistencies in prior statements, gaps or missing documentation, or circumstances that the insurer believes warrant closer scrutiny. In some cases, even without clear evidence, insurers may suspect potential fraud and use the EUO to explore that possibility. Claims involving business interruption or loss of income are also commonly subject to EUOs, as they often require detailed financial review and supporting documentation.
 
What to do if an EUO is requested after a property insurance claim

Take these steps immediately:

Do not ignore the request.

Timely submit a Sworn Statement in Proof of Loss.

Ask what documents are required.

Request clarification on topics to be covered.

Prepare thoroughly before attending.

Consider legal guidance early.

 What happens during an EUO?

Understanding the EUO process can help reduce stress and ensure proper preparation. During an EUO, you are placed under oath and questioned by the insurance company’s attorney about your claim, while a court reporter records everything in a transcript.

The questions typically cover the cause of the loss, the specific property that was damaged, your financial situation, and any prior claims history. You may also be asked to provide supporting documents, such as receipts, repair estimates, or photos of the damaged property. Preparing in advance and knowing what to expect can help you answer clearly and consistently, protecting your claim from unnecessary challenges or delays.

Practical mistakes to avoid during an EUO 

Even small missteps during an Examination Under Oath can put your claim at risk. Common mistakes include:

Guessing answers instead of saying “I don’t know.”

Volunteering extra information not asked by the insurer.

Appearing unprepared or without supporting documents.

Being defensive or argumentative during questioning.

Failing to review prior statements before attending.

Attending an EUO without an experienced insurance attorney by your side.

 Avoiding these mistakes helps ensure your testimony is accurate, consistent, and protects your claim from unnecessary challenges.

Why you need an attorney for your insurance claim

An EUO can be complicated, and small mistakes can lead to reduced or denied claims. An experienced insurance attorney helps you understand your policy, prepare documents, and answer questions accurately to protect your rights.

Attorney Rabih Hamawi is an experienced insurance-coverage attorney who has successfully handled hundreds of claims and recovered millions for policyholders. The Law Office of Rabih Hamawi can be reached at (248) 905-1133. 

In her March 31, 1776 letter, Abigail Adams wrote her husband, John Adams, “Remember the Ladies.”

In her March 31, 1776 letter, Abigail Adams wrote her husband, John Adams, “Remember the Ladies.” Mrs. Adams reminded her husband of women’s need to have greater rights in the newly formed American government. Her request fell on deaf ears, but 250 years later on Women’s History Month in March, Women’s International Day, and International Day of Women Judges, the Detroit legal community had cause to remember and celebrate the women lawyers and judges, honoring our past and celebrating those who lift as they climb. 

“No women allowed, welcomed, or wanted” was the accepted business practice as women graduated from law schools in the late 1960s.  

Regardless of talent, women entered the legal profession facing challenges, barriers, restrictions, and stereotypes. Access to employment, elected positions, and professional associations was restricted. Dress and decorum were policed. It was an absurd thought that a woman could practice law or sit as a judge. 

The Michigan Supreme Court

The Michigan Supreme Court has existed since 1805. The first woman took the bench in 1973. Justice Mary Coleman was elected to the Michigan Supreme Court to a term of service beginning January 1, 1973. She was the first woman to serve as chief justice, holding that position from 1979 until her retirement in 1982. In her first year, she wrote a unanimous opinion that recognized married women's interest in their personal property. Since Justice Coleman, 14 women, many from the Detroit legal community, have served on the Michigan Supreme Court.  Currently, four women sit on the Michigan Supreme Court and Justice Megan Cavanagh serves as chief justice.  

Justices and Years of Service

Mary S. Coleman 1973–1982
Patricia Boyle 1983–1998
Dorothy Comstock Riley 1985–1997
Elizabeth A. Weaver 1995–2010
Marilyn Kelly 1997–2012
Maura D. Corrigan 1999–2006
Diane Hathaway 2009–2013
Mary Beth Kelly 2011–2015
Bridget Mary McCormack 2013–2022
Joan L. Larsen 2015–2017
Elizabeth T. Clement 2017–2025
Megan K. Cavanagh 2019–Present
Elizabeth M. Welch 2021–Present
Kyra Harris Bolden 2023–Present
Kimberly Ann Thomas 2025–Present

Their biographies are  in the Michigan Supreme Court historical Society website: https://www.micourthistory.org/justices/

The Michigan Court of Appeals

The Michigan Constitution of 1963 created the Michigan Court of Appeals. It commenced operations in 1965. In 1976, Dorothy Comstock Riley was appointed and became the first woman to sit on the Michigan Court of Appeals. Judge Karen Fort Hood was elected and became the first African-American woman on that bench in 2003. In 2022, Judge Sima Patel became the first woman of South Asian descent to serve on the Michigan appellate court. In 2025, Judge Mariam Bazzi was appointed, becoming the first Arab American woman to serve on the Michigan appellate court

Third Circuit Court

The news headlines read, “Justice dons a skirt” when Lila J Neuenfelt was the first woman elected judge to the Third Circuit Court in 1941.  Cornelia Kennedy followed as the second woman in 1966. In 1980, Judge Lucile Watts took the bench. She was the first Black woman to be elected as a circuit court judge in Michigan. In 1997, Judge Kirsten Frank became the first Presiding Judge of Third Circuit Court’s newly created Family Division.  In 2002, the Michigan Supreme Court appointed Judge Mary Beth Kelly the chief judge of the Wayne Circuit Court, making her the first woman to lead that court. Many women from the Third Circuit like Judge Kelly ascended to higher benches, but in 2004 Judge Kym Worthy left the bench and became the first woman to serve as the Wayne County Prosecutor and the first African-American woman to serve as a county prosecutor in Michigan. In 2005, Judge Charlene Elder was appointed, becoming the first Arab- American Muslim woman judge in the country. Judge Patricia Fresard in 2023, was named as chief judge, becoming the second woman and the first Hispanic person to hold the distinction. These judges have worn skirts, dresses, pants, and hijabs and have ensured justice is accessible to all.  

Detroit Recorder’s Court and District Courts in Wayne County

I am still learning and collecting pieces about women’s history and the Detroit Recorder’s Court and district courts in Wayne County. I look forward to sharing those in the future. In the meantime, here are a few women judge highlights:

 Martha W. Griffiths was the first woman elected as a judge of Detroit's Recorder's Court, taking the position in 1953. In 1966, Judge Geraldine Bledsoe Ford joined the bench, becoming the first Black woman judge in Michigan and the first Black woman in the United States elected to a judgeship without the benefit of a prior appointment. When Recorder’s Court merged with Wayne County Circuit Court in 1997, Judge Vera Massey Jones was serving as the chief judge. 

In 1974, Audrey Stroia was selected the first female Judge for the 33rd District Court. She was instrumental in the creation of a Downriver Bar Association as well as the Wayne County Family Bar Association.

In addition to the local judges, remember the women lawyers, women bar associations, the women in bar associations and women student associations in the local law schools.

Never underestimate the power of one: In 1970, Attorney Sue Weisenfeld, a Detroit practitioner advocated and won support of Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Brennan for women lawyers wearing pants in the courtroom. Chief Justice Brennan wrote,“ there is nothing inappropriate about trouser suits for women lawyers appearing in the Supreme Court, or any other court in the state. They have achieved wide acceptance among women of good taste in both business and social circles, and would not in these times be looked upon as mere sportswear.”

Local and Affinity Bar Associations

The local and affinity bar associations demonstrate the power of collective effort and collaboration to promote justice and the interests of women in the legal profession.

The Women Lawyers Association of Michigan was created in 1919 before women gained the right to vote.  Honorable Tanya Grillo is the current president. The Wayne reach encompasses Detroit and is led by its president, Jailah Emerson. WLAM Foundation Angel Carole Chiamp credited the association for breaking barriers and ensuring the right for women to enter the front doors of the Detroit Athletic Club and to sit unescorted at a bar.

Carole Chiamp was elected as the first woman President of the Detroit Bar Association in 1982. That was 18 years after Judge Cornelia Kennedy was the first woman named to the board of directors of the Detroit Bar Association. In the historical records at the Detroit Library, there is little mention of the women involved in the Detroit Bar other than the Ladies Reception Committee at a bar event. The Detroit Bar Association has had 10 women presidents since its inception in 1836. Stefanie Regan of Hickey Hauck Bishoff Jeffers & Seabolt will take the oath in June and become the 11th woman president.

The Black Women Lawyers Association of Michigan (BWLAM) was founded July 28, 1992 and incorporated on March 25, 1993.  BWLAM promotes civic education through law and the scholarship and opportunity for black women at all levels of education. Dorothy Dean is the current president and one of the 2026 initiatives is offering book awards for students to several law schools in the area.

State Bar of Michigan President Lisa Hamameh and President-Elect Erika Bryant, like many of the previous women presidents of the State Bar of Michigan, have strong ties to the Detroit’s local and affinity bars. 

Law schools

Phyllis Crocker served as the first woman Dean of the University of Detroit Mercy Law School (2014-2021).  During her tenure, the portrait of Judge Denise Langford Morris was installed in the school’s atrium, becoming the first official portrait of a woman on the wall. 
Judge Langford Morris was the first African American judge on the Oakland County Circuit Court. Jelani Jefferson Exum followed Phyllis Crocker as dean and became the first Black woman Dean for University of Detroit Mercy Law. 

 Wayne State University Law School had standouts as well. Joan Mahoney served as dean from 1998 to 2003. She was the first woman law school dean in Michigan. Prof. Frederica K. Lombard served as its first full-time female faculty member (starting in 1966), professor, and interim dean (2003-2004) until her retirement in 2007. She was a founding member of the school’s Commission on the Status of Women. 

The Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan, and the Black Women Lawyers Association of Michigan are dedicated collectors and the keepers of the records. Thanks to the individual efforts of those such as Lynn Seaks, Carrie Sharlow, Judge Cynthia Stephens, Attorney Nicole Smithson, Attorney Kristina Bilowus the history of Detroit women lawyers and judges is being preserved and remembered. 

I recently had a client send me a document relating to a partnership dispute. The agreement looked fine at first glance and purported to release the client from further liability to the business.

I recently had a client send me a document relating to a partnership dispute. The agreement looked fine at first glance and purported to release the client from further liability to the business. It had professional formatting, familiar boilerplate, all the right headings. As I continued reading, the indemnification clause flatly contradicted the limitation of liability two pages later. The dispute resolution section listed mediation, arbitration, and litigation as concurrent remedies with no sequencing. No governing law provision anywhere. I asked where the contract came from. The answer: ChatGPT.
That story is not unique to my practice. I have been hearing versions of it from colleagues in every area of law. These AI-drafted agreements are showing up more often, and they are becoming a real source of business disputes. If contract work is not your focus, you may not catch every issue. But knowing what to look for and when to pick up the phone and refer the client, can save them a world of trouble down the road.

Why AI-generated  contracts fail

Here is the core problem: these tools predict what a contract should sound like based on patterns. They are not doing legal reasoning. The output reads well and mimics the tone and cadence of professional drafting, but there is no judgment behind it. The tool does not account for what your client’s risk tolerance is, what regulations govern the transaction, or how a judge in Wayne County would read a particular clause.

Internal contradictions are the biggest failure I am seeing. The tool will generate competing payment terms or conflicting termination rights in different sections of the same agreement without catching the inconsistency. Missing provisions are just as common. I regularly see agreements with no governing law clause, no definition of material breach, nothing resembling a workable dispute resolution process. Then there is what I call jurisdiction blindness: the tool pulls language rooted in another state or country’s law and drops it into a Michigan contract where it means nothing. And finally, there is the problem of false precision. The language sounds dense and authoritative, but when you slow down and parse it, it does not actually say anything enforceable.

What makes this worse is that the finished product looks good. A business owner sees clean formatting, legal terminology, and section headings and assumes the document is solid. Nobody discovers the problems until the relationship goes sideways and one party tries to enforce the agreement, or the other tries to get out of it.

What to watch for across practice areas

This is not just a business litigation problem, either. These contracts are turning up everywhere: in real estate deals, employment arrangements, vendor agreements, partnership formations. 

A colleague in estate planning told me about an LLC operating agreement a client had generated to hold rental property. No buyout provisions. Nothing addressing member dissociation under Michigan’s LLC Act. The management structure described in the document bore no resemblance to how the parties actually ran the company. I have heard similar stories from real estate attorneys dealing with purchase agreements full of ambiguous contingency language, and from employment lawyers finding independent contractor agreements that describe what any court would recognize as an employment relationship. That is a misclassification lawsuit waiting to happen.

Every one of these situations has the same thing in common. The client asked a tool to do something that requires professional judgment, and the tool delivered a document that looks competent but is not. Worse, by the time you are seeing it, the contract has often been signed and performed on for months.

Getting ahead of the problem

If you spot one of these or even suspect you are looking at one, do your client a favor and get them in front of contract counsel before the document becomes a lawsuit. A review on the front end might run a client a few thousand dollars. Litigating an ambiguous or unenforceable agreement on the back end will cost multiples of that, plus the relationship it destroys along the way.

What to look for

You do not need to be a contract specialist to spot the warning signs. Look for provisions that repeat or contradict each other in different sections of the same document. Check whether there is a governing law or venue clause, and if there is, whether the jurisdiction it names has any connection to the parties. Watch for indemnification language that is so broad it shifts all the risk onto one side without that party seeming to realize it. See if key terms like “material breach,” “confidential information,” or “work product” are actually defined, or just used and never explained. And pay attention to the dispute resolution clause. If it references mediation, arbitration, and litigation all at once without specifying an order or which one controls, that is a problem. Any one of these is a good reason to pick up the phone and connect your client with someone who does this work every day.

These tools are not going away and for certain tasks they can be useful. But drafting a contract that will hold up when things go wrong requires judgment, context, and years of watching deals fall apart. A piece of software does not have that. The best thing we can do is help our clients understand the difference before they learn it the hard way. And when the document is already on the table, making the right referral might be the most valuable ten minutes you spend on that client all year.

In this column, we are going to discuss the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC).
I can hear your reaction: What took you so long?

In this column, we are going to discuss the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC).

I can hear your reaction: What took you so long?

I’ll confess that I hardly knew much about NPVIC until a good friend, David Shepherd, called my attention to it.

And I learned that if adopted, it would provide a seismic change in how we elected the president of the United States.

First some background.

Introduced in 2006, NPVIC would be an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and D.C. 

According the organization heading the drive, the compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide is elected president, and it would come into effect only when it would guarantee that outcome.

Thus far, 17 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the measure for a total of 209 electoral votes.  The number needed is 270 out of a total of 538 electors.   

The Virginia legislature also has passed the required bill and, if signed by the governor, it would bring the total to 222. Forty-eight to go.

In Michigan, which has 15 electoral votes, the measure was introduced in 2023 by Representative Carrie Rheingans, a Democrat who represents western Washtenaw County and southeastern Jackson County.

It was sent to committee but “died” before a vote could be taken on the floor. In an interview with The Detroit Legal News, she said she is considering reintroducing the bill and hopes to have the entire package adopted before the next presidential election in 2028. She’s optimistic.

Now, overall, most, if not all, good government organizations support abandoning the electoral system of electing a president. 

Generally, they point to the losses of Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, who were defeated in their races despite winning the popular vote in 2000 and 2016, respectively.

Thus, they argue, no more “seven swing states” to elect a president serving a population of 338 million.

Strong argument but…

--Ultimately, the election still relies on electoral votes.

--Voters who cast their ballot for the candidate not receiving their state’s electoral votes will feel disenfranchised.

--While NPVIC maintains that adoption would not require changes in the Constitution, opponents argue otherwise, almost guaranteeing a prolonged legal fight. Some insist it would require approval from Congress.

--Democrats and Republicans are split on the issue with the former supporting it and Republicans in opposition.  Do we need another national inter-party battle?

--Opponents worry about the possibility of needing nationwide recounts in close elections. They observe that no state can compel other states to recount votes, and without uniform procedures, the legitimacy of the president-elect could be questioned. 

--Supporters contend that NPVIC gives states with large populations an edge over smaller ones. But this isn’t a state issue it is a national one. We don’t use electors in state-wide elections for governor and U.S. senators even though the political interests of counties are different.

For instance, in Michigan, Wayne County has the largest population (1.78 million) of Michigan’s 83 counties and no one would propose to adopt an electoral system that has the other 82 counties ban together in voting for governor and the two U.S. senators to balance the power of Wayne County. Surely, residents in Wayne County have competing objectives with Keweenaw County – population of a whopping 2,060 – in the Upper Peninsula.

In a comprehensive analysis, the renowned think tank, the Cato Institute, concludes: “In an era when disputed elections are becoming more common and where the laws governing presidential elections are already riddled with dangerous 
ambiguities, the NPVIC is an invitation to a constitutional crisis. 

“With the world’s most powerful office at stake, America’s presidential election procedures need certainty and stability. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact threatens to bring us the exact opposite, an election in which the rules would be extremely uncertain and unsettled.

“Rather than risking such a high-stakes catastrophe, opponents of the Electoral College should accept there’s no easy shortcut around the difficult task of amending the Constitution.”

So, what to do?

Why not just go to a straight popular vote? Why do we need electors at all?  It makes little sense. The electoral system was initiated to placate slave states with a lower population than Northern states because slaves did not have the right to vote. A change is long overdue; let’s say some 150 years or so.

Thus, I am casting my one non-elector vote to adopt a “pure popular” vote and have the president elected by the majority of Americans.

Yes, that would require a change in the Constitution but it would end a long-standing debate.

The answer seems so simple that I know we will continue arguing about this for years to come.

Nothing ever comes easy in our politics.