By Tom Kirvan
Legal News
U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Ralph Guy Jr., among the titans in the federal legal community, died April 20 at the age of 96, leaving behind a legacy that will be long treasured by a wide range of admirers.
Count Tom Cranmer, one of the most prominent defense attorneys in Michigan, among them.
“As a young Assistant United States Attorney, I had the good fortune of trying a number of cases in front of Judge Guy,” said Cranmer, a longtime partner at Miller Canfield. “I can honestly say that I have never appeared before a finer trial judge. His legal acumen and judicial demeanor were extraordinary. Judge Guy has always been at the top of my list of legal heroes. He was and is an incomparable legal giant that will be sorely missed.”
A product of Dearborn Fordson High School, Judge Guy came by his legal talents naturally, as the son of Ralph Sr., a district court judge in Dearborn who formerly served as the city’s chief of police as well as president of its city council.
Initially, however, Guy had no intentions of following in his father’s legal footsteps, opting to enroll at the University of Michigan with plans to pursue a career as a journalist instead.
“I loved to write, and like many students I had a romanticized notion of such a job,” Guy said in a 2010 interview with The Legal News. “I then discovered that there were few good-paying jobs in journalism, so I shifted my career sights elsewhere. I went to law school with the frame of mind that getting a law degree would be great background for a career in upper management of a company.”
Out of financial necessity, he worked his way through law school at U-M, including a job with Owens-Illinois, the giant glass manufacturer. Following graduation, he practiced law with his father, handling a variety of legal matters over the course of the next year. After being passed over for an opening as assistant city attorney in Dearborn, Guy was appointed assistant corporation counsel for the city, eventually taking over the head job when his superior died of a heart attack.
“There I was, at the age of 28, in charge of a six-person legal department for one of the largest cities in the state,” Guy recalled.
Heady stuff, for sure. The job paid the worldly sum of $10,500 a year. In 1958 dollars, that was a lot of money. Such a fact was confirmed when the new corporation counsel went into an Ann Arbor men’s store to buy a nifty new suit. In its pocket was a promotional card sporting the message: “For the man who wants to be making $10,000 a year.” For Guy, it was further confirmation that he had arrived.
In his work as corporation counsel, Guy was named to the Wayne County Board of Supervisors, a governing panel that included the likes of such heavyweights as Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union.
He also handled a lot of trial work for the city as well as appellate cases in front of the Michigan Supreme Court. His courtroom talents caught the eye of James Brickley, a Detroit city councilman who was about to be named the U.S. Attorney in Detroit.
Guy, after careful deliberations about his legal future, decided to take the job as Brickley’s chief assistant, thinking it would be a good career move to join the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
One day into his new job, Guy had different thoughts. The office furnishings were shabby and quarters were cramped. Staff morale was at low ebb and the workload was daunting.
“It was all I could do that first night to stop from crying,” he said. “All I could think of was that I just made the biggest mistake of my life. The place was in turmoil and the cases were stacked up a mile high.”
By the spring of 1970 and within a year of joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Guy was about to take on even more responsibilities. Brickley had been asked by then Governor William Milliken to be his running mate in the fall election. By August of that year, Guy was now in charge as the chief federal prosecutor.
“It was another case of me being in the right place at the right time,” Guy said in reflecting on his career path.
During his six years as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, Guy would answer to five different Attorneys General, largely as a result of the Watergate crisis.
“The office joke was that, “If the Attorney General calls, make sure you get his name,’” Guy said with a grin.
Guy’s ascension to the U.S. District Court bench took place in June 1976, a stay that lasted until October 1985 when he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals by then President Ronald Reagan.
Mark Werder, a former law clerk for Judge Guy and chief of the Civil Division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office from 1982-84 before beginning a distinguished career in private practice with Honigman, said that the Detroit jurist was “uniformly worshipped” by those in federal circles.
“When he was elevated to the Court of Appeals, the sentiment was widely held in the Detroit federal litigation community that the Sixth Circuit’s gain was an enormous loss for our district,” said Werder, who graduated first in his class at the University of Toledo Law School. “There was a real sense of misfortune and shock among litigators over permanently losing one of the district’s truly outstanding trial judges to the appellate bench.”
Added Werder: “It was always striking to me that he could roam extemporaneously during rulings, yet it was next to impossible to tell from the transcripts where he had actually departed and rejoined the language and analysis that he’d carefully crafted in advance. As a young lawyer still drafting and endlessly re-drafting research memos and laboring over word choice to the exasperation of the judge’s secretary – during the time of carbon paper – it was dumbfounding to me that Judge Guy had this incredible facility for executing ‘perfect product’ off the top of his head. I don’t think he was all that impressed when they invented the IBM Selectric Typewriter with the ball that could correct text without doing the whole page over.”
During his more than four decades on the federal appellate bench, Guy also pulled double duty as the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which oversaw surveillance applications in the crucial years following the 9/11 attacks.
Widely known for his dedication to public service, Guy also was admired for his legal brilliance and his mentorship of younger attorneys, including Dan Malone, who over the course of his exceptional legal career held key litigation roles with Butzel and Dykema.
“I had the profound honor of serving as a law clerk to the Honorable Ralph B. Guy Jr. nearly 50 years ago, and I have never stopped being grateful for that privilege,” said Malone, a past president of the local chapter of the Federal Bar Association. “To this day, I believe he possessed one of the most brilliant and incisive legal minds I have ever encountered. But what made him truly extraordinary was that his intellect was matched – indeed surpassed – by his humility, kindness, and generosity of spirit. He also generously dedicated his time and considerable talents to improving our legal profession.
“Judge Guy was more than a mentor to me; he was a hero,” Malone declared. “He took genuine interest in the growth of each of his clerks, not just as lawyers, but as people. After hearings, he would invite our candid critiques and then share his own, creating a dialogue that sharpened our thinking and instilled confidence. He taught me how to analyze the law with rigor, but also how to understand what truly drives a case – where the weight of precedent lies, where the leverage is, and where fairness must prevail.
“His guiding principle was as elegant as it was powerful: ‘Go back and carefully review what the governing legal standard requires.’ That discipline – always to first principles – stayed with me throughout my 40-year legal career,” Malone noted. “He was, in every sense, a lawyer’s judge – deeply respected for his intellect and judgment – yet unfailingly courteous and fair to all who appeared before him. There was no pretense about him, no distance. He treated everyone with dignity.”
For several decades, Judge Guy held senior status on the appellate court, allowing him the opportunity to work on a reduced caseload from his home outside scenic Harbor Springs. There he and his wife, Yvonne, shared the beauty of northern Michigan, as well as their love of golf, tennis, biking, and travel. The couple met while on a sightseeing trip to Japan and were married for some 37 years. Their travels took them around the globe and to regular visits to see Judge Guy’s two sons, James and David.
“Judge Guy and Yvonne were great sports enthusiasts and fine athletes,” their longtime friend Tom Cranmer remarked. “They loved the Wolverines and Michigan football. Earlier on in his life/career, Judge Guy and Yvonne played a lot of doubles tennis together. Later in life, golf took on a more prominent role . . . They were the consummate hosts both on and off the golf course.”
Such was a quality that Malone also experienced.
“Over the years, he and his dear wife, Yvonne, also became cherished and lifelong friends to my wife and me,” said Malone. “That enduring friendship is something I will always treasure.
“Judge Guy was a giant of the federal judiciary, but to those of us who knew him, he was something even greater – a model of integrity, wisdom, and humanity,” Malone said. “He will be deeply missed, and never forgotten.
Legal News
U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Ralph Guy Jr., among the titans in the federal legal community, died April 20 at the age of 96, leaving behind a legacy that will be long treasured by a wide range of admirers.
Count Tom Cranmer, one of the most prominent defense attorneys in Michigan, among them.
“As a young Assistant United States Attorney, I had the good fortune of trying a number of cases in front of Judge Guy,” said Cranmer, a longtime partner at Miller Canfield. “I can honestly say that I have never appeared before a finer trial judge. His legal acumen and judicial demeanor were extraordinary. Judge Guy has always been at the top of my list of legal heroes. He was and is an incomparable legal giant that will be sorely missed.”
A product of Dearborn Fordson High School, Judge Guy came by his legal talents naturally, as the son of Ralph Sr., a district court judge in Dearborn who formerly served as the city’s chief of police as well as president of its city council.
Initially, however, Guy had no intentions of following in his father’s legal footsteps, opting to enroll at the University of Michigan with plans to pursue a career as a journalist instead.
“I loved to write, and like many students I had a romanticized notion of such a job,” Guy said in a 2010 interview with The Legal News. “I then discovered that there were few good-paying jobs in journalism, so I shifted my career sights elsewhere. I went to law school with the frame of mind that getting a law degree would be great background for a career in upper management of a company.”
Out of financial necessity, he worked his way through law school at U-M, including a job with Owens-Illinois, the giant glass manufacturer. Following graduation, he practiced law with his father, handling a variety of legal matters over the course of the next year. After being passed over for an opening as assistant city attorney in Dearborn, Guy was appointed assistant corporation counsel for the city, eventually taking over the head job when his superior died of a heart attack.
“There I was, at the age of 28, in charge of a six-person legal department for one of the largest cities in the state,” Guy recalled.
Heady stuff, for sure. The job paid the worldly sum of $10,500 a year. In 1958 dollars, that was a lot of money. Such a fact was confirmed when the new corporation counsel went into an Ann Arbor men’s store to buy a nifty new suit. In its pocket was a promotional card sporting the message: “For the man who wants to be making $10,000 a year.” For Guy, it was further confirmation that he had arrived.
In his work as corporation counsel, Guy was named to the Wayne County Board of Supervisors, a governing panel that included the likes of such heavyweights as Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union.
He also handled a lot of trial work for the city as well as appellate cases in front of the Michigan Supreme Court. His courtroom talents caught the eye of James Brickley, a Detroit city councilman who was about to be named the U.S. Attorney in Detroit.
Guy, after careful deliberations about his legal future, decided to take the job as Brickley’s chief assistant, thinking it would be a good career move to join the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
One day into his new job, Guy had different thoughts. The office furnishings were shabby and quarters were cramped. Staff morale was at low ebb and the workload was daunting.
“It was all I could do that first night to stop from crying,” he said. “All I could think of was that I just made the biggest mistake of my life. The place was in turmoil and the cases were stacked up a mile high.”
By the spring of 1970 and within a year of joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Guy was about to take on even more responsibilities. Brickley had been asked by then Governor William Milliken to be his running mate in the fall election. By August of that year, Guy was now in charge as the chief federal prosecutor.
“It was another case of me being in the right place at the right time,” Guy said in reflecting on his career path.
During his six years as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, Guy would answer to five different Attorneys General, largely as a result of the Watergate crisis.
“The office joke was that, “If the Attorney General calls, make sure you get his name,’” Guy said with a grin.
Guy’s ascension to the U.S. District Court bench took place in June 1976, a stay that lasted until October 1985 when he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals by then President Ronald Reagan.
Mark Werder, a former law clerk for Judge Guy and chief of the Civil Division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office from 1982-84 before beginning a distinguished career in private practice with Honigman, said that the Detroit jurist was “uniformly worshipped” by those in federal circles.
“When he was elevated to the Court of Appeals, the sentiment was widely held in the Detroit federal litigation community that the Sixth Circuit’s gain was an enormous loss for our district,” said Werder, who graduated first in his class at the University of Toledo Law School. “There was a real sense of misfortune and shock among litigators over permanently losing one of the district’s truly outstanding trial judges to the appellate bench.”
Added Werder: “It was always striking to me that he could roam extemporaneously during rulings, yet it was next to impossible to tell from the transcripts where he had actually departed and rejoined the language and analysis that he’d carefully crafted in advance. As a young lawyer still drafting and endlessly re-drafting research memos and laboring over word choice to the exasperation of the judge’s secretary – during the time of carbon paper – it was dumbfounding to me that Judge Guy had this incredible facility for executing ‘perfect product’ off the top of his head. I don’t think he was all that impressed when they invented the IBM Selectric Typewriter with the ball that could correct text without doing the whole page over.”
During his more than four decades on the federal appellate bench, Guy also pulled double duty as the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which oversaw surveillance applications in the crucial years following the 9/11 attacks.
Widely known for his dedication to public service, Guy also was admired for his legal brilliance and his mentorship of younger attorneys, including Dan Malone, who over the course of his exceptional legal career held key litigation roles with Butzel and Dykema.
“I had the profound honor of serving as a law clerk to the Honorable Ralph B. Guy Jr. nearly 50 years ago, and I have never stopped being grateful for that privilege,” said Malone, a past president of the local chapter of the Federal Bar Association. “To this day, I believe he possessed one of the most brilliant and incisive legal minds I have ever encountered. But what made him truly extraordinary was that his intellect was matched – indeed surpassed – by his humility, kindness, and generosity of spirit. He also generously dedicated his time and considerable talents to improving our legal profession.
“Judge Guy was more than a mentor to me; he was a hero,” Malone declared. “He took genuine interest in the growth of each of his clerks, not just as lawyers, but as people. After hearings, he would invite our candid critiques and then share his own, creating a dialogue that sharpened our thinking and instilled confidence. He taught me how to analyze the law with rigor, but also how to understand what truly drives a case – where the weight of precedent lies, where the leverage is, and where fairness must prevail.
“His guiding principle was as elegant as it was powerful: ‘Go back and carefully review what the governing legal standard requires.’ That discipline – always to first principles – stayed with me throughout my 40-year legal career,” Malone noted. “He was, in every sense, a lawyer’s judge – deeply respected for his intellect and judgment – yet unfailingly courteous and fair to all who appeared before him. There was no pretense about him, no distance. He treated everyone with dignity.”
For several decades, Judge Guy held senior status on the appellate court, allowing him the opportunity to work on a reduced caseload from his home outside scenic Harbor Springs. There he and his wife, Yvonne, shared the beauty of northern Michigan, as well as their love of golf, tennis, biking, and travel. The couple met while on a sightseeing trip to Japan and were married for some 37 years. Their travels took them around the globe and to regular visits to see Judge Guy’s two sons, James and David.
“Judge Guy and Yvonne were great sports enthusiasts and fine athletes,” their longtime friend Tom Cranmer remarked. “They loved the Wolverines and Michigan football. Earlier on in his life/career, Judge Guy and Yvonne played a lot of doubles tennis together. Later in life, golf took on a more prominent role . . . They were the consummate hosts both on and off the golf course.”
Such was a quality that Malone also experienced.
“Over the years, he and his dear wife, Yvonne, also became cherished and lifelong friends to my wife and me,” said Malone. “That enduring friendship is something I will always treasure.
“Judge Guy was a giant of the federal judiciary, but to those of us who knew him, he was something even greater – a model of integrity, wisdom, and humanity,” Malone said. “He will be deeply missed, and never forgotten.
In a 2010 photo, Judge Guy is pictured with his wife, Vyonne, at their home in northern Michigan.
Photo by Tom Kirvan
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