By Tom Kirvan 
Legal News

At the Federal Bar Association’s Annual Meeting in June, attorney Ken Mogill stepped squarely into the spotlight when he was honored with the coveted Cook-Friedman Civility Award, joining a distinguished list of past recipients that includes the likes of Eugene Driker, Saul Green, Thomas Cranmer, Reginald Turner, Kathleen Bogas, and Edward Pappas.

Mogill, a University of Michigan Law School alum, is no stranger to FBA honors. In 2019, he was saluted with the Leonard R. Gilman Award, which is presented annually to an outstanding practitioner of criminal law who exemplifies the excellence and professionalism of the award’s namesake, who served with distinction as the U.S. Attorney from 1981 until his death four years later.

In his acceptance speech upon receiving the Cook-Friedman honor, Mogill demonstrated why he also should be in line for a “humility award” for his humble nature.

“I’m grateful to the (FBA) Committee, since there are so many others who are very deserving of this award, and relieved that the Committee didn’t ask me to fess up about times when I’ve been less than civil,” Mogill quipped.

“This being the Cook-Friedman Award, I’m also grateful to have had the opportunity to practice before Judge Cook, who was the epitome of civility, and Judge Friedman, who treats everyone graciously but is also willing to add a bit of spice,” Mogill noted, recalling an anecdotal story during a landmark legal case. “At one point during the marriage equality trial (see related story on page 4), which was before Judge Friedman, I objected to the qualifications of one of the state’s proposed experts. Sustaining my objection, Judge Friedman said to the would-be witness: ‘You’ll make a fine expert one day, but not today.’”

Mogill, who first argued before the United States Supreme Court at the age of 25, has a treasure trove of such stories, accumulated over a 55-year career that has been remarkable in the truest sense of the word. 

“From the outset of his practice in 1971, he has taken on the causes of his clients with skill and purpose,” said U.S. District Judge David Lawson in his introductory remarks about honoree Mogill at the FBA Annual Meeting and awards ceremony. “That year, he joined a team of lawyers who successfully represented Attica Prison inmates charged with various crimes as a result of the August 1971 uprising. Nearly all of their claims of state misconduct were confirmed by the state of New York’s own McKay Commission.

“In the early years of his practice, he represented supporters of the United Farm Workers Union’s long-running grape boycott who were arrested for various acts of civil disobedience,” Lawson noted. “He successfully represented anti-nuclear protesters arrested, also for acts of peaceful civil disobedience, including a successful appeal in the Michigan Supreme Court of contempt findings against some of the protesters. He successfully represented many striking union members arrested for various offenses during The Detroit Free Press/Detroit News newspaper strike and lockout (1995-97).”

Lawson, who has known Mogill for more than 40 years, said that the longtime Lake Orion resident has handled eight cases before the United States Supreme Court, arguing three, co-counseling on two more, and spearheading an amicus team on the rest. In addition, Lawson recounted, Mogill has held leadership positions on more than a dozen State Bar and Supreme Court boards and commissions, including serving as chair of the State Bar Standing Committee on Professional Ethics for three years.

“He has authored or co-authored eight treatises on substantive law and trial practice,” Lawson added. “He has published and delivered over 100 articles and presentations in legal publications and forums. And he is known as the premier authority on legal ethics and attorney discipline in the state of Michigan.”

A member of the federal bench since 2000, Lawson has presided over thousands of cases during his judicial career and, accordingly, is an especially qualified judge of good lawyering when he sees it. Looking at Mogill’s long list of accomplishments, Lawson said “the well-worn phrase ‘lawyer’s lawyer’ comes to mind” when describing the honoree.

“In Ken’s case, it is literal,” Lawson said of the description. “But I prefer to think of Ken as a fireman lawyer. He has spent his whole career rushing into burning buildings to save his clients, many times from themselves. And he has done that with grace and the gift of recognizing the humanity and dignity of all parties to a dispute.”

A 1968 honors graduate of U-M, Mogill grew up in Oak Park, the oldest of three children. His father was a veteran of World War II who enjoyed a successful career as an insurance agent. His mother was a talented artist who “was born a generation too soon,” according to Mogill, noting that she was deprived of many career opportunities because of her gender.

Much of his own success can be traced to “my parents and grandparents, all four of whom came here in the early 1900s to escape pogroms and war in Eastern Europe,” according to Mogill, the founding partner in the Lake Orion-based law firm of Mogill, Lemanski, & Gerometta PLLC.

“There was no higher compliment in our household than being called a ‘mensch,’ which is, of course, civility with a Yiddish accent,” Mogill remarked in his acceptance speech. “Those generations are long gone in our family, but our children and grandchildren are here, and I hope that I’m passing the mensch lessons along to them.”

His decision to attend law school was heavily influenced by those who led the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements during the 1960s and 1970s, two interconnected eras of massive social upheaval that reshaped American law, culture, and political activism.

During law school, Mogill spent his spare time working for $2.50 per hour for a Detroit law firm headed by Justin Ravitz and Ken Cockrel, two attorneys known for their activism and commitment to political and economic justice. Aside from the occasional missed payday, the work experience proved beneficial in the long run, said Mogill, instilling in him the confidence to open his own law firm after earning his juris doctor degree. 

“I wanted to focus on criminal law,” he said of his decision to “hang up my shingle” at a rented office in Detroit’s Greektown area. “During my first year of practice, a former classmate of mine brought me a case that eventually became known as Michigan v. Tucker and involved a defendant seeking habeas corpus relief after being convicted of the rape and beating of a Pontiac woman.”

It turned out to be anything but a run-of-the-mill criminal case, as Mogill eventually was involved in a nettlesome legal matter related to Miranda guidelines that would be decided nearly three years later by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I won at the trial court level and the Sixth Circuit (Court of Appeals) affirmed the decision, and then the Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the lower court ruling and, as an added issue, to consider overruling Miranda v. Arizona,” Mogill said of the case that began when the defendant was arrested for a rape that had been committed in 1966. “I was just two-and-a-half years out of law school, so I had to seek pro hac vice admission to argue before the Supreme Court because of the standard three-year requirement.”

When his admission motion was granted, Mogill then had to come to grips with the fact that he would be appearing – at the age of 25 – before the highest court in the land, an August judicial body that included Chief Justice Warren Burger, Justice Thurgood Marshall, Justice William Douglas, future Chief Justice William Rehnquist, among others.

“It was non-stop questioning for 40 minutes and I did my best to avoid going down any rabbit holes,” Mogill related, noting that the opposing counsel in the case was L. Brooks Patterson, who at the time was the Oakland County Prosecutor. “I lost by an 8 to 1 vote with Justice Rehnquist writing the majority opinion and Justice Douglas dissenting.

“On the facts of the case, I was sure I was going to lose; it was question of what issue,” Mogill said. “The basis of the (Supreme) Court’s decision was to rule that Miranda wasn’t retroactive, which fatally undermined my client’s argument but didn’t harm much of anyone else by 1974. In that sense, the decision was as much of a win as was possible in the circumstances.”

Despite the setback, Mogill considered his first Supreme Court case a “tremendous learning experience,” and even viewed Justice Douglas’s dissent in the context of a “moral victory,” given that he greatly admired Douglas for his fiercely civil-libertarian ways, as well as for the fact that Douglas’s dissent lifted two paragraphs from his brief.

Mogill, who was the recipient of the State Bar of Michigan’s Champion of Justice Award in 2014, has always been “guided by a fundamental sense of dignity, decency, candor, and fair play” in both his professional and personal life. He admits that early in his career he was totally consumed by his work, noting that “I would not have been a very good spouse” if he had been married at the time.

But his work-life focus changed when, at the age of 30, he met his future wife, Maureen Shaughnessy, an Oakland University-educated teacher who sported an Irish-Catholic background. Despite their different faiths and cultural upbringings, Shaughnessy and Mogill would soon become one, sharing a joyful and purposeful life together that now is approaching 50 years. 

The couple, who have lived in Lake Orion for more than 40 years, have four children – Benjamin, Megan, Caitlin, and Hannah – and four grandchildren.

“Our family is our pride and joy,” said Mogill. “We are fortunate that many of them live close by so we get to see them often.”

When they do gather together, Mogill is certain that they all subscribe to the importance of civility in everyday life, a message he underscored when accepting the Cook-Friedman honor from the FBA in June.

“In the dictionary, civility is courtesy and politeness,” Mogill said in his acceptance speech. “Incivility is boorishness, rudeness. 

“A line I came across that struck a chord with me is that we are civil not because we agree with one another but because we belong to one another,” Mogill noted.

“So, thank you to everyone in and out of our profession who is speaking up for the rule of law and judicial independence so we can hopefully continue to have a legal system in which we have the opportunity to be civil while litigating profound, deep-seated differences among us.”
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Attorney reflects on ‘marriage equality’ case

By Tom Kirvan 
Legal News

In 2025, upon the 10th anniversary of the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges that made same-sex marriages legal in America, Ken Mogill, one of the attorneys for the Michigan plaintiffs[KM1.1] in the case, reflected on the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that has become among the most transformative chapters in the history of human rights.

Mogill, who since 2002 has been an adjunct professor at Wayne State University Law School, penned a “Point of View” article on the case and the long struggle for marriage equality, a legal and social movement that fundamentally redefined dignity and equal protection under the law.

His article, which appeared in the Wayne Lawyer magazine, offered a riveting account of the legal battle that involved several other members of the Wayne State community – attorney Dana Nessel, a 1994 alumna of the law school who is finishing her second term as Michigan’s Attorney General, and renowned constitutional law professor Robert Sedler, who passed away in January 2025 at the age of 89.

“Without Dana there wouldn’t have been the case to begin with,” Mogill said emphatically. “She was the driving force behind getting it going and doing so much throughout the case to educate people to the issues in the case.”

Wayne Law Professor Sedler also played a pivotal role in developing a legal strategy in the case, based in part on having “written a prescient 2003 law review article that laws prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying were unconstitutional,” Mogill indicated.

In addition, Ann Arbor attorney Carole Stanyar was part of the legal team assembled by Nessel. A Yale University grad who earned her juris doctor from Boston College Law, Stanyar is an “accomplished litigator and appellate lawyer” who had prior U. S. Supreme Court experience to her credit, according to Mogill[KM2.1]. 

Mogill, of course, also had a front-row seat to the proceedings, joining Nessel, Sedler, and Stanyar as lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Michigan marriage equality case. 

The legal journey, Mogill explained, began not as a sweeping constitutional challenge to the institution of marriage, but instead as a deeply personal quest for family security. In 2011, April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, two nurses living together in Hazel Park, were raising three adopted children, two of whom had special needs. 

Since Michigan law banned unmarried couples from jointly adopting, each child could only be legally adopted by one parent, the legal team explained. If something happened to the legal parent, the other would have no custody rights, leaving the children vulnerable to being separated by the foster care system, he indicated. Desperate to protect their family, the couple sought legal counsel.

Originally, the lawsuit targeted only Michigan’s restrictive adoption law, Mogill indicated. However, during a pivotal motion hearing, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman posed a striking question to Stanyar, who was arguing the motion for the legal team: “Aren’t you really challenging the marriage amendment,” Judge Friedman asked, practically inviting them to amend their complaint to bring the state’s constitutional ban of same-sex marriage into play.

“This was a ‘now-what-do-we-do’ moment,” Mogill wrote in the Wayne Lawyer article. “The judge had thrown cold water on our argument but offered a lifeline. We were terrified that if we challenged the marriage amendment prematurely and lost, we would set back the struggle for marriage equality nationally. But what about April and Jayne’s children? We amended the complaint.”

The case then shifted into a direct challenge against Michigan’s 2004 voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. The federal trial that followed in 2014 proved historic, becoming one of the only marriage equality cases nationwide to feature a full evidentiary trial examining the sociological and psychological realities of same-sex parenting. The state, according to Mogill, argued strongly that traditional marriage structures were necessary for child-rearing and that the will of the state’s voters should be upheld.

During closing arguments, Mogill delivered an impassioned defense of human dignity.

“There is a well-emerged awareness that denial of the right to marry is a form of discrimination that our society can no longer tolerate,” Mogill stated firmly to the court, emphasizing that fundamental constitutional rights are designed to protect minorities from the overreach of majorities. 

As a matter of modern law, Mogill argued, marriage had evolved into a gender-neutral institution grounded in love, mutual commitment, and equal protection.

“Thinking about what makes marriage fundamental led me to reflect on my own marriage,” Mogill wrote in the Wayne Lawyer article. “My parents had wanted me to marry a ‘nice Jewish girl.’ Instead, I married Maureen Shaughnessy, a wonderful Irish Catholic woman. Unlike April and Jayne, no one told us our different religious backgrounds barred marriage. Our right to marry didn’t depend on children, adoption, parenting skills, cohabitation, or even love. Stripped of cultural and religious practices, marriage is a civil contract that doesn’t distinguish rights or duties based on gender.”

Judge Friedman agreed, striking down Michigan’s marriage ban. Though the state immediately appealed and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit later reversed the trial court decision on a 2-1 vote, the groundwork had been laid. The Michigan case, DeBoer v. Snyder, was consolidated with similar challenges from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, ascending to the highest court in the land as companion cases to Obergefell v. Hodges.

On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the 14th Amendment guarantees same-sex couples the fundamental right to marry across all 50 states. The impact, said Mogill, was staggering, as instantly millions of LGBTQ+ Americans were granted the same legal protections, tax benefits, inheritance rights, and social recognition long afforded to heterosexual couples. More importantly, according to Mogill, it erased the state-sanctioned stigma that labeled their relationships and families as lesser.

By the time the case ended, the Michigan plaintiffs, April and Jayne, had adopted two more children. Mogill’s own family also was “touched” by the Supreme Court decision.

“Our youngest daughter and oldest grandson came out, married, and celebrated without an asterisk – in each case their celebration was ‘just’ a wedding,” Mogill said. 

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ On June 26, 2015, the arc became a rainbow,” Mogill declared.

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