Saginaw native named to 'Best Lawyers' ranks

By Kurt Anthony Krug
Legal News

Lawyer Michael Jordan has another thing in common with the legendary basketball player besides sharing the same name: Both are stars in their respective professions.

Born in Saginaw, Jordan was recently named as an Ohio Super Lawyer in the area of Alternative Dispute Resolution and as one of the Best Lawyers in America. According to Jordan, 61, of Rocky River, Ohio, this hasn’t been the first time he’s been rewarded these designations either.

“I was named to Best Lawyers in American in the categories of mediation, arbitration, health care law, litigation-commercial, and litigation-labor and employment,” said Jordan. “I am particularly honored by these designations because other attorneys make the selection and have chosen me for more than a decade.”

Jordan graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Sigma Alpha, and Omicron Delta Kappa from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio with an undergraduate degree in politics and government in 1976. After graduation from OWU, he attended George Washington University Law School – the oldest law school in Washington, D.C. – graduating with his juris doctorate in 1979. During his time at GW Law, he was a member of Law Review. Jordan has been a practicing attorney for 36 years. He is licensed to practice in Michigan (he practiced in his native Saginaw for eight years), Ohio, the U.S. District Courts for the Northern District of Ohio and Eastern District of Michigan, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Within the latter’s jurisdiction is the Eastern District of Michigan, the Western District of Michigan, the Eastern District of Kentucky, the Western District of Kentucky, the Northern District of Ohio, the Southern District of Ohio, the Eastern District of Tennessee, the Middle District of Tennessee, and the Western District of Tennessee.

“Although arbitration and mediation were always a part of my practice, I decided to focus exclusively on these areas approximately five years ago. I believe that the litigation process is too expensive and time-consuming. Alternative dispute resolution processes like mediation and arbitration can help parties bring disputes to closure much more efficiently,” explained Jordan.

Last month, the American Health Lawyers Association published Jordan’s article, “Arbitration: Clause Drafting Guidance Under the AHLA Rules and Suggestions on Selecting an Arbitrator” in the AHLA Journal of Health & Life Sciences Law.

Other awards he’s earned include the Academy of Medicine of Cleveland and Northern Ohio (AMCNO) Presidential Citation Award in recognition of his legal services to the medical community in the greater Cleveland area in 2007. He’s also the recipient of the Rosewood Gavel Award for Outstanding Service from the American Arbitration Association. Jordan chairs the Program Planning Committee for the AHLA, coordinating arbitration and mediation training programs nationwide. On behalf of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution in New York City, Jordan is a member of the peer-reviewed Health Care and Life Science Panel.

As an advocate, he has participated in countless settlement conferences, mediations and arbitrations, understanding the dynamics of each process. He has also served as a mediator and arbitrator for several years. That background and experience, coupled with ongoing mediation and arbitration training, makes him well-suited to assist attorneys and their clients in the resolution of disputes. In early 2016, Jordan is slated to speak in Japan at a health care law conference sponsored by various U.S. and Japanese health care organizations, including the Center for Global Health Affairs in Cleveland, the Socio-Medical Research Institute in Tokyo, and the Healthcare MBA program at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio.

“I’ll try not to spark any international incidents,” he joked.

This is Jordan’s third time speaking in Japan. In the past, he’s lectured about physician/hospital medical staff relations. This time, he’ll review accountable care organizations.

“Always be kind to strangers. I struck up a conversation with a fellow airline passenger, and it turned out that he was a professor at (BWU),” said Jordan. “For several years, he’s coordinated an exchange program between Japanese and American health care professionals to review current practices of health care delivery in the United States. I was asked to speak to a group of Japanese health care professionals when they toured Cleveland, and I was subsequently invited to lecture in Japan.”

For Jordan, the best part of practicing law is what attracted him to the legal profession in the first place: “the opportunity to help people.”
 

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