NALS of Michigan to hold legal conference Jan.16 in Lansing

NALS of Michigan will hold its Winter Legal Education and board of directors meeting on Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016, at Foster Swift Collins & Smith, P.C., 313 S. Washington Square, Lansing.

There will be three one-hour educational seminars in the morning, entitled “A Spotlight on the Military Justice System and Our Veterans.”

Session speakers are Patrick Patterson, Executive Vice President at Volunteers of America Michigan; Dr. Nikki Brown, Executive Director at Canines for Change; and Col. John Wojcik¸ General Counsel for the Michigan National Guard.

Patterson has 18 years of experience working with and overseeing programs serving homeless people. In 2015, Michigan’s Governor Snyder appointed him to the new Michigan Interagency Council on Homelessness.

Brown, who has been training dogs for over 15 years, owned and operated Premier K-9, a dog training school in Grand Ledge, from 2003 to 2012. She holds two master’s degrees from Michigan State University in Counseling and School Psychology and has completed her PhD with an emphasis in behavior modification. Her education and years of experience training pet dogs, as well as training and breeding police dogs, make her an expert in the field of dog training and behavior modification.

Wojcik, who has served as the general counsel for the Michigan National Guard since 2002, supervises 24 military attorneys who provide strategic legal coverage for 11,000 employees, 3 Air Force bases, 2 Army bases, and over 50 armories across the State of Michigan. From 2010 to 2011 he served in Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom, where he was awarded the Bronze Star among other awards. He helped facilitate the creation of the Ingham County Veteran’s Court in East Lansing and was a proponent in the creation of the Military and Veterans’ Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan. A 1996 graduate of Cooley Law School, Wojcik has taught there as an adjunct professor since 2004, where he has taught military law and developed the federal contracting law course for the Homeland Security LLM program. He is a certified Army comptroller and has taught federal contracting certification courses for the National Guard Bureau throughout his military career. 

The $25 cost for NALS members includes the seminar, lunch, and board meeting; non-member cost is $35 for seminar and lunch; students $10 for the seminar and lunch or no cost for the seminar only. There is no cost to attend the board of directors meeting but lunch is not provided.

The registration deadline is January 6, 2016; to register, visit www.nalsofmichigan.org or contact Paula Steffey at westernmom40@gmail.com.