SBM Blog

SBM Young Lawyers Section Announces Recipient of 2017 Regeana Myrick Outstanding Young Lawyer Award

The State Bar of Michigan Young Lawyers Section will present Katherine Marcuz with the Regeana Myrick Outstanding Young Lawyer Award on Saturday, April 29, at Crystal Mountain Resort in Thompsonville.

Marcuz is an appellate attorney at the State Appellate Defender Office and principal attorney for the Appellate Investigation Project, an innovative collaboration between SADO and the Michigan Assigned Appellate Counsel System to provide MAACS roster attorneys with greater access to investigators and training on spotting and litigating extra-record issues in need of expert witnesses. Prior to beginning her work at SADO in 2012, Marcuz clerked for Hon. Catherine Easterly of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Prior to becoming an attorney she worked as a high school English teacher in Brooklyn, New York. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College, a master’s degree in education from Brooklyn College and a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School.

The Young Lawyers Section also named two finalists for the Regeana Myrick Outstanding Young Lawyer Award. Ryan Berman runs his own law firm in Bloomfield Hills, working on international business law, real property law and criminal law. He is also a licensed real estate salesperson, mediator, political consultant, law enforcement trainer, reserve police officer, charter member of the International Law Enforcement Educators & Trainers Association and a judge for the Michigan High School Mock Trial Tournament. He is a graduate of Michigan State University and Wayne State University Law School. Abril Valdes is an attorney with Clement and Hurst in Troy, focusing her practice on immigration, family law and criminal defense. She serves as secretary of the Hispanic Bar Association of Michigan, director of membership for the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan Wayne Region and a Barristers Board member of the Detroit Bar Association. She is a graduate of California State University and the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.

The award is named for Regeana Myrick, who was a very active member of the SBM Young Lawyers Section Executive Council when she died in 1997. It is presented annually to a young lawyer in Michigan who has demonstrated many of her best qualities, including an overwhelming commitment to public service, exemplary service to the State Bar, and exceptional professional accomplishments.

The Outstanding Young Lawyer Award will be presented as part of the SBM Young Lawyers Section 10th Annual Summit. The Summit contains a full day of seminars that will cover substantive and skill-based tracks on such topics as family law, civil rights law, insurance law, mediation, trial skills and advocacy, practice management and client development. It will also feature a keynote address from Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Stephen Markman.

For more information about the Summit, visit connect.michbar.org/yls/home or contact Shenique Moss at [email protected].

Check out the SBM Practice Management Resource Center's New Learning Page

The State Bar of Michigan Practice Management Resource Center has launched a new learning page: Learning EZ.

Learning EZ features educational videos, webinars and other resources created by the State Bar's practice management advisors and experts who work for SBM partner companies. 

The PMRC will also be launching a new Learning EZ free webinar series in which legal industry expert guests present webinars on technology, social media, practice management tools, cyber security, opening a practice and more.

To receive notifications on upcoming Learning EZ webinars and other practice management news, sign up here.

Michigan Supreme Court to hold public hearing May 17

The Michigan Supreme Court will hold a public administrative hearing starting at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 17 in the Supreme Court courtroom, located on the sixth floor of the Michigan Hall of Justice in Lansing. 

Members of the public will have an opportunity to speak for three minutes about items on the agenda, which include many proposed amendments to Michigan Court Rules and and the Michigan Rules of Evidence. To speak at the public hearing you must reserve space on the agenda. To do so, you must notify the Office of Administrative Counsel by email at [email protected] or via snail mail at P.O. Box 30052, Lansing, MI 48909 by May 15. 

View all administrative matters on the agenda for the hearing. 

 

SBM to Present “Tips and Tools” For a Successful Practice Seminar on May 2

The State Bar of Michigan will present “Tips and Tools for a Successful Practice” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 2, at the State Bar’s Michael Franck Building in downtown Lansing.

The semi-annual seminar features presentations on how to maintain mutually beneficial client relationships, draft effective fee agreements, manage lawyer trust accounts, analyze ethical issues, and use innovative techniques and technology for law office management. The seminar presents an excellent opportunity for solo practitioners and new lawyers to obtain ethical guidance and practical information from colleagues who have successfully implemented law office management techniques and utilized economically-priced technology to improve the efficiency of their law practices.

Registration costs $100 for lawyers who have been in practice for less than five years and $125 for those who have practiced law for five years or more. The registration fee includes seminar materials, a continental breakfast and buffet lunch. To view the agenda or make a reservation, visit http://www.michbar.org/tipstools. The registration deadline is Friday, April 28.

For more information contact Karen Spohn with the State Bar of Michigan Professional Standards Division at [email protected] or (517) 346-6309.

Kalamazoo Central High School Team Wins Mock Trial Tournament

Kalamazoo Central High School claimed victory over Ann Arbor Community High School at the state championship of the Michigan High School Mock Trial Tournament on March 25 at the Veterans Memorial Courthouse in Lansing. They will advance to the national championship May 11-14 in Hartford, Connecticut. 

The tournament, run by the Michigan Center for Civic Education, consisted of four regional rounds in Washtenaw, Kent, Macomb and Oakland counties. The top 10 teams moved on the the state championship, where they were evaluated by presiding judge Hon. Carl Marlinga and scoring judges Donald Fulkerson and Lawrence Nolan. 

Anchor Bay High School, Caledonia High School, Cardinal Mooney Catholic High School, Capac High School, Detroit Catholic Central High School, Grand Blanc High School, Huron High School, St. Mary Catholic High School, Trenton High School and University of Detroit Jesuit High School also competed at the state finals. 

The Michigan High School Mock Trial Tournament is sponsored by the State Bar of Michigan, SBM Appellate Law Section, Comcast, Donald Fulkerson, SBM Litigation Section, MEEMIC Insurance Company, Meijer, Michigan State Bar Foundation, Oakland County Bar Foundation, Linda Rexer and Rock Financial. 

View a full photo album from the tournament on the SBM Facebook page. 

Attention Detroit-Area Attorneys: Lakeshore Legal Aid Needs Your Help

Lakeshore Legal Aid and the City of Detroit Clean Slate Project will host an expungement fair to help low-income people expunge their non-violent criminal records in order to get jobs. The fair will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 6 at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church, located at 2080 W. Grand Blvd. in Detroit. 

If you're an attorney in the metropolitan Detroit area, they need your help. They're expecting about 1,500 people to attend the fair and they will all need help learning if they are legally eligible for expungements. If they are eligible, they'll then need help preparing State Court Administrative Office pleadings. 

No prior experience in handling expungements is necessary, and you can sign up to participate in all or part of the day. You will NOT leave with cases. You WILL leave having participated in a very meaningful pro bono experience. 

For more information or to sign up to participate, contact Lynda Krupp at [email protected]. 

International Society of Barristers Names Lecture Series for Professor John Reed

The International Society of Barristers has created an annual lectureship to honor John W. Reed, Thomas M. Cooley Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Michigan Law School and retired Wayne State University Law School dean.

On March 24, Michigan State Supreme Court Justice Bridget McCormack delivered the inaugural John Reed Lecture at the 2017 meeting of the International Society of Barristers. Titled "The Forensic Science Frontier: It's up to the Lawyers," the lecture drew on Justice McCormack's extensive involvement with studies of the validity of forensic evidence.

Professor Reed became an academic fellow of the Society in 1978 and served as administrative secretary and editor of its journal, Quarterly, from 1979 to 2010. For the last 20 years of his tenure in the Society, Professor Reed gave the concluding speech at each annual convention, urging the fellows on to a sense of high purpose.

The Society was created in 1965 and is dedicated to preserving trial by jury, the adversary system and an independent judiciary. Its founders conceived the organization to bring together the best of the trial bar in a setting devoid of partisan interests. The emphasis of the organization is on warm fellowship among professionals without regard to their orientations as plaintiffs' or defendants' advocates. In such a setting it becomes possible to consider, rationally and in good will, issues of ethics and excellence in advocacy and the role of litigation in society.