Brittany M. Schultz, a products liability attorney with Dykema's Bloomfield Hills Office, will be honored with the Michigan Defense Trial Counsel Young Lawyers Section Golden Gavel Award during the MDTC Annual Meeting on Friday, May 20, at Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in Mt. Pleasnt.
Schultz is part of the firm's Automotive Industry Team. Since joining Dykema seven years ago, She has helped defend automotive manufacturers and suppliers in a number of high-stakes, high-profile cases including personal injury class actions, wrongful death cases, premises liability actions, general negligence and supplier disputes. Schultz is also a member of Dykema's Pro Bono Committee.
Her contributions on behalf of clients such as General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Kia have helped bring favorable verdicts in difficult cases. She was part of the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor class action defense team that successfully won a defense verdict in St. Clair County, Ill.
Schultz recently presented a "Litigation Boot Camp" basic training session that focused on the use of experts. She also provided research for the author of an article on prosecutorial misconduct in grand jury investigations that was published in the South Carolina Law Review.
In addition, Dykema is pleased to announce that Nicholas J. Winters has joined its Real Estate Group as an Associate in Bloomfield Hills. Winters' experience is focused on transactional real estate matters, including negotiation and documentation of agreements for the purchase and sale of commercial real estate, the acquisition and disposal of property, leasing arrangements for both commercial and retail space and development of shopping centers.
Winters was admitted to the State Bar of Michigan in 2006. He obtained his law degree from Wayne State University Law School.
Winters is a member of the Oakland County Bar Association, the Federalist Society, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), serves on the City of Rochester Hills Historic Districts Commission and, in 2008 and 2010, was listed as a "Rising Star" in "Michigan Super Lawyers."
* * *
Gary M. Remer will be a featured presenter at the MACPA Employee Benefit Plans Workshop--The Convergence of Audit & Tax which will be held at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi (formerly Rock Financial Showplace) on Wednesday, May 18.
Remer will be speaking on Common Employee Benefit Plans Operational Compliance Matters. The conference will feature local and national speakers focusing on retirement plan compliance issues and tax planning strategies.
* * *
Farmington Hills-based Zausmer, Kaufman, August, Caldwell, & Tayler PC (ZKACT) announces that attorney Cinnamon Rice has joined the firm as an associate.
Rice brings more than a decade of experience in civil litigation. Prior to joining ZKACT, she served as a senior trial attorney at Citizens Insurance Company of America handling personal and commercial lines of business and a wide variety of litigation including first and third-party auto, premises liability, construction, maritime, fraud, and insurance coverage.
Rice gained trial practice while at Citizens and has tried numerous third-party auto negligence and first-party PIP and fraud actions to verdict. She also has experience appearing before the Michigan Court of Appeals.
The Eastern Michigan University and Thomas M. Cooley Law School alumna is currently a hearing panelist for the State Bar of Michigan Attorney Discipline Board. She is member of the State Bar of Michigan and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
In addition, ZKACT announces that it has added attorney Mary T. Doll as an associate.
Doll specializes in the defense of first and third party auto claims. During her career, she has developed experience in the defense of claims involving first and third party auto, premises liability and defamation. She also has appeared before the Michigan Court of Appeals and the Michigan Supreme Court.
Doll graduated with a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Michigan and received her law degree from the Detroit College of Law in May 1990. She is admitted to practice law in the State of Michigan, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
* * *
Jeffrey D. Moss has joined Dawda Mann PLC as a member, practicing in the areas of tax law, business and medical transactions, estate planning and tax-exempt nonprofit matters.
Moss counsels companies and their owners, individuals, fiduciaries and beneficiaries regarding tax planning, succession planning and compliance. He has experience with choice of entity, international tax planning and other tax-advantaged structures. He is experienced in obtaining federal, state and local tax credits, incentives and grants, particularly in the areas of alternative and renewable energy, MEGA credits, advanced battery tax credits and Michigan film tax credits.
Moss handles the formation and qualification of entities as tax-exempt under federal tax law for charitable, educational or scientific purposes, and has experience with IRS controversies including the Offshore Income Voluntary Disclosure Program and is admitted to practice in front of the IRS and in U.S. Tax Court.
Moss has experience in structuring and handling mergers and acquisitions, reorganizations, asset purchase and sale transactions, stock purchase and sale transactions, liquidations, recapitalizations and related transactions in a tax favorable manner. Moss's corporate practice involves all types of business formation, including corporations, limited liability companies, joint ventures and partnerships. He is actively involved in issues confronting medical professionals, including practice formation and separation, buy-sell agreements, estate planning and asset protection solutions, creation of limited liability companies and other issues.
ABA Property and Probate magazine named Moss' January 2010 article, "Solar Panels, Tax Incentives and Your House," the Best Cutting Edge Article of 2010. Moss was also named a Top Lawyer by DBusiness Magazine for 2011 in the areas of Tax Law and Non Profit/Charities Law.
Moss earned his law degrees from the University of Michigan Law School and Wayne State University Law School. He received his B.A. from the James Madison College at Michigan State University in 1990.
* * *
Honigman, Miller, Schwartz, and Cohn LLP is pleased to announce that Denise J. Lewis, a partner in the firm's Real Estate Department, recently was a featured panelist at a seminar entitled "The New Detroit: Laying the Groundwork for a Revitalized and Sustainable City," cosponsored by the Institute of Continuing Legal Education (ICLE) and the Real Property Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan. Her discussion topics included new market tax credits, federal historic credits, Brownfield redevelopment loans, grants and tax credits, the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program and other incentives and private contributions.
Lewis focuses her practice in representing national and regional developers in complex transactions that include public-private partnerships, urban redevelopment and mixed-use development. She also handles multi-tiered transactions involving shopping centers, office buildings, restaurants, single-family residences, hospitals, apartment complexes and industrial facilities.
Lewis has had a leading role in some of the most significant development projects for the Detroit area's business community, including the Raleigh Michigan Studios; Compuware headquarters; the General Motors Renaissance Center; the Tech Town research park; the Book Cadillac Hotel; the Marathon Oil refinery expansion; and campus development for the College for Creative Studies.
She was named one of 20 "Women in the Law" for 2010 by Michigan Lawyers Weekly and has received recognition in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business from 2005 to 2010; in "Best Lawyers in America" in 2010 and 2011; and in "Michigan Super Lawyers" from 2006 to 2010 and its Top 50 Women from 2006 to 2010. Lewis received the National Association of Women Business Owners' Top Ten Michigan Business Woman Award in 2008 and earned the "Powerful Women in the Legal Field" Award from the Rhonda Walker Foundation in the same year.
She earned her law degree from the University of Michigan, an M.A. from Wayne State University and a B.A. from Columbia University.
* * *
Flood, Lanctot, Connor, Stablein PLLC (FLCS) is pleased to announce that Jeff Matis has joined the firm as a senior associate. Matis was previously an executive partner at the law firm of Secrest Wardle and has more than 17 years of experience as a civil litigation attorney.
Throughout his legal career, Matis has successfully represented clients in more than 1,000 cases in state and federal courts, and he has been instrumental in creating new law in Michigan. In a leading case involving the former Pine Knob Music Theatre, Matis successfully represented his clients from the trial court through the Michigan Supreme Court, and established new Michigan law concerning Premises Liability claims and the duty owed by landowners, MacDonald v PKT, Inc., et al, 464 Mich 322, 628 NW2d 33 (2001).
Matis also has experience with large value and high profile cases. In a case arising from the 1999 Rouge Steel Powerhouse explosion, which was one of the largest single property loss incidents in the history of the United States prior to 9/11, Matis successfully represented his clients through more than 2 months of trial before obtaining a favorable settlement.
He serves as a court ordered case evaluator and is admitted to practice in Michigan, as well as the United States District Court, Eastern and Western Districts, and the United States Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit.
Matis also currently serves as vice chairman of the Oakland County Board of Commissioners, and he previously served as Rochester City Councilman, where he was elected with the highest number of votes cast for a candidate in the history of the City of Rochester.
His areas of practice will involve virtually all areas of civil litigation, including premises and products liability, automobile and general negligence, commercial matters and professional malpractice.
* * *
Butzel Long attorney and shareholder David F. DuMouchel will be a featured speaker during the Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants 2011 (MACPA) Anti-Fraud Issues Conference on May 17 in Novi. The title for the presentation is: "Kickback Schemes."
Based in Butzel Long's Detroit office, DuMouchel chairs the firm's Corporate Compliance, Internal Investigations and Criminal Defense practice.
DuMouchel's practice is limited to white collar criminal defense, professional licensure and criminal health care, criminal IRS investigations of both taxpayers and professionals, SEC enforcement of corporate executives, public corruption, as well as grand jury investigations, internal corporate investigations and compliance.
DuMouchel served as law clerk to Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Giles Kavanagh from 1975-1977. He was an adjunct professor of law at Wayne State University and is a frequent lecturer on criminal practice matters.
He has served on the faculty of the U.S. District Court, Advocacy Institute; ICLE: Attorney Grievance and Discipline Practice; ICLE: Health Care Law Institute; ICLE "Polygraphs"; ABA Health Care Fraud, 2005; ABA White Collar Crime Institute, 2006, 2007, 2008; State Bar of Michigan Program, "Compelled Waiver of Attorney-Client Privilege," 2006; Michigan Association of CPA's, "Accounting Fraud," 2006, 2007. He also is a frequent speaker on internal corporate investigations and federal criminal procedure matters.
In 2006, DuMouchel was appointed to serve on the American Bar Association's White Collar Crime Committee for a two-year term as chair of the sentencing committee. He has served as a member of the Rules Advisory Committee, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan and was a member of the U.S. District Court Committee on Magistrate Program Evaluation, and chaired the Federal Bar Association Criminal Defense Committee. He served as a member of the Advisory Committee which drafted the Restatement of Law Governing Lawyers of the American Law Institute, and is on the Member's Consultative Group of the ALI Model Penal Code Sentencing Project.
DuMouchel has been a member of the State Bar of Michigan Criminal Code Revision Committee, U.S. Courts Committee, and Grievance Committee. In addition, he is a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and was a director in 1981. DuMouchel is a master of bench emeritus, American Inn of Court Ch. XI. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the Michigan State Bar Foundation, the American College of Trial Lawyers, and the International Society of Barristers.
DuMouchel is a graduate of Wayne State University Law School (1975) and the University of Detroit (1972).
* * *
The Michigan Supreme Court has appointed Bodman PLC attorney Thomas Van Dusen to the Committee on Model Civil Jury Instructions, which drafts standard instructions for juries in civil cases.
The committee is composed of 21 judges and attorneys who ensure that model civil jury instructions used in Michigan courts are concise, understandable, conversational, unslanted, and not argumentative. The committee also has the authority to amend or repeal existing instructions and, when appropriate, adopt new instructions.
Van Dusen, who practices in Bodman's Troy office, is a member of the Litigation & Alternative Dispute Resolution Practice Group. He has experience in the areas of commercial, insurance and personal injury defense including arbitration hearings, bench trials, jury trials and appeals.
Van Dusen is listed in "The Best Lawyers in America" under Commercial Litigation and in "Michigan Super Lawyers" under Business Litigation. He is a member of the American Arbitration Association, National Diocesan Attorneys Association, and the Oakland County Circuit Court's Case Evaluator Panel. Van Dusen is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School.
* * *
Michael P. McGee, a principal and public finance lawyer in the Detroit office of the law firm of Miller Canfield, has received a 2011 Outstanding Service Award from the Michigan Municipal League (MML) for his longtime commitment to the League and Michigan's communities. He received the award at the MML's Capital Conference on April 6 in Lansing.
At Miller Canfield, McGee has served as bond counsel and underwriters' counsel for hundreds of transactions in various areas including economic development, transit and transportation. In addition, he has negotiated complex intergovernmental agreements for a wide variety of clients including a major economic development project for the Southeast Michigan region and related legislation. Over the past 25 years, he has had primary responsibility for general obligation and revenue bond issues amounting to more than $3.5 billion.
A three-time graduate of the University of Michigan, he earned a bachelor's degree in economics and political science in 1979, a law degree in 1982, and a master's degree in public policy studies in 1983.
Published: Mon, Apr 18, 2011