LEGAL PEOPLE

The Michigan Defense Trial Counsel has announced its leadership for July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020. The officers are:

• President Irene Bruce Hathaway of Miller, Canfield, Paddock, & Stone PLC.
• Vice President Terence P. Durkin of Kitch, Drutchas, Wagner, Valitutti, & Sherbrook.
• Treasurer Deborah L. Brouwer of Nemeth Law PC.
• Secretary John Mucha III, Dawda, Mann, Mulcahy, & Sadler PLC.
• Immediate Past President Joshua K. Richardson of Foster Swift, Collins, & Smith PC.

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Weitz & Luxenberg has hired attorney Tiffany Ellis to the firm’s office in Detroit. Ellis’ practice areas will include opioids, defective drugs and devices, human trafficking, and complex mass tort and class action litigation.

Weitz & Luxenberg’s Detroit office serves clients from more than 60 Michigan cities and counties in national opioids litigation and litigates additional class action and mass tort cases throughout the country.

Ellis is an experienced advocate both in and outside of the courtroom. In 2018, she was part of a two-person trial team that secured a more than $4 million verdict on behalf of a family who lost their husband and father in an avoidable trucking crash. Due in part to this verdict, Ellis was presented with the 2018 F. Scott Baldwin Award, where she was recognized by her peers as the “most outstanding young trial lawyer in the country.”

Ellis earned a Master in Law degree in Intellectual Property and Technology from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. While she was completing her law degree, Ellis worked for a federal judge, an NGO in Ghana, as a public defender in San Diego, and successfully contended the nation’s preeminent trial competitions.

Prior to attending law school, Ellis was the chief of staff for the former New Jersey Office of the Child Advocate. She also served as a member of one of New Jersey’s child fatality review teams. Before her work in state government, Ellis worked numerous political campaign cycles as an organizer, fundraiser, event planner, communications director, and campaign manager.

She began her career as a newspaper reporter.

Ellis is the immediate past president of the Detroit Bar Association Barristers Board, an executive board member of the Michigan Association for Justice, and is active in numerous other legal and social justice organizations.

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Daniel Soleimani, partner at Jaffe, Raitt, Heuer, & Weiss PC, was elected to the board of directors of the Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit. He will serve a three year term.

A member of Jaffe’s Tax Practice Group, Soleimani advises publicly held and closely held corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies and individuals on all aspects of federal, state and local tax laws, as well as helps clients facilitate wealth preservation and transfer.

The Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit works to play a role in the physical, social, spiritual and educational well-being of the Jewish and general community. The facility offers year-round programing for families, children and adults.
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