2008 Best Lawyers in Metro Detroit
Later this year, the 2008 Best Lawyers in America will be published, but DBusiness presents an exclusive list of the top attorneys in our region. To complement the list, we profiled the CEOs five largest law firms in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and Washtenaw counties, all of whom made the list. In addition, we pay special tribute to Ernie L. a prominent lawyer who recently passed away.
Local Lawyer Profiles
MIKE W. HARTMANN MILLER CANFIELD
Illustration by: Kent Barton
Mike W. Hartmann's predecessors in the job of CEO at Miller Canfield had essentially given up practicing law six months into the job - it's that demanding. Hartmann, having held the position since January, is hanging in there. So far.
"I'm a trial lawyer, and I still like to do it," he says. "In a perfect world, I'd still do some trial work. But there's no way around spending a majority of your time in administration." Hartmann has help, from colleagues and from a COO who handles much of the day-to-day work of running a firm of 340 lawyers and related staff. But he's still a litigator in his heart and soul.
"I grew up as a high-school and college debater, so it's a natural fit for me," he says. "I'm comfortable on my feet. I like to try to figure out the best argument." Hartmann's not a specialist; he's tried a wide variety of cases in construction, accounting, law firms, and banks. Essentially, as he puts it, "I litigate big-business disputes."
But one thing about working at a big law firm is, you don't have to leave to try something different. So when he found himself drawn to management, he had the opportunity. He's "found the challenge exciting," if a little less dramatic than the courtroom.
With the firm now well-established in eastern Europe - it has three offices in Poland - Miller Canfield now has a global reach. And there's plenty to do in a rapidly globalizing business community.
ALAN S. SCHWARTZ HONIGMAN MILLER SCHWARTZ AND COHN
Illustration by: Kent Barton
Alan S. Schwartz is coming to the end of what would be, for the handful of attorneys who attain it, the very peak of a career - CEO of the firm where he's spent his entire career, Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn. After five years in the CEO chair, he's ready to give it up. But at 63, he's not ready to retire. He's returning to a lower level of firm management (vice chair) and looks forward to spending more time with clients. Lawyers with his experience are too valuable to quit the game just yet.
"In a city like Detroit, with the flight of talent, the notion that you can replace the wisdom of someone who's done this for a long time, just because a person is 65 or 67 or whatever, really seems shortsighted to me," Schwartz says. "I love what I do, and I don't want to leave. Neither does my wife. When the time is right, I'll either recognize it or someone will push me." In the meantime, he'll enjoy a somewhat slower pace, and "maybe see a movie once in a while."
After 39 years of practice, mostly in business law, Schwartz has accumulated his share of wisdom, along with a long view of the changes over four decades. "Most business transactions are still about two things, how much money and who is going to take the risk." But the pace is quite different.
Today, "lawyers don't get enough time to think," he says. Manual typewriters and the U.S. Postal Service have given way to the frenetic pace of electronic communication. "Now clients e-mail you, and they want a reply by e-mail. You're still expected to respond authoritatively and with your best judgment, but instantaneously. It takes self-confidence to say, 'I want to think about that overnight.'"
REX E. SCHLAYBAUGH JR. DYKEMA GOSSETT
Illustration by: Kent Barton
All of us are, to some extent, products of the times we live in. Rex E. Schlaybaugh Jr. came to the practice of law in 1974, and was reaching his higher gears in the 1980s, when the mergers-and-acquisitions boom took off on Wall Street. As an attorney with a keen interest in business - he'd been an economics major as an undergrad - he was in prime position to make this niche of business law his specialty.
Schlaybaugh, 58, now in his sixth year serving as CEO of Dykema Gossett, didn't start out a big-firm lawyer. He and two classmates started their own shop in Lansing after graduating from law school in 1974, and were acquired by Dykema a few years later. He hasn't moved since, and has seen the profession change immensely in that time.
"In many senses, the legal business has gone the way the medical profession has: Specialization is the word today," he says. As doing business becomes more complicated, clients and potential clients are looking for the sort of deep-down knowledge-base more likely to be found in a firm large enough to support it. "Our clients are very knowledgeable purchasers of legal services," he says. "A large firm is able to have a wide array of specialists that can help them solve their problem."
And Schlaybaugh's niche? "I have a big practice in consumer finance, in creditors. Federal and state laws regulate how those companies do business. Trial lawyers have a significant practice suing those people," he says. As the subprime lending meltdown shakes out, he foresees "probably more regulation coming, another round of litigation. I expect to be kept busy on that front with the regulatory and legal fallout," he says.
PHILIP J. KESSLER BUTZEL LONG
Illustration by: Kent Barton
Philip J. Kessler grew up in Detroit, went to college in Ann Arbor, and then did something lots of people on this list didn't do - he left, taking his law degree at the University of California at Berkeley. And while he loved northern California and would love to have stayed, something about southeast Michigan called him home. He landed at Butzel Long after his 1972 graduation.
"I always wanted to do peaceful business work," he says. His education at Berkeley gave him a solid grounding in both securities law, and mergers and acquisitions. But he enjoyed litigation, too. The twin interests - putting deals together and then dealing in the courtroom with the things that can go wrong in business - gave Kessler some "enormously valuable experience" in crafting his career.
Today, he has a sub-niche in so-called "bet the company" litigation, cases so big and important that the fate of a company often hangs in the balance. It’s high-wire work, but Kessler tries not to let it unnerve him. "Surgeons don't walk into the O.R. thinking that the patient might die," he says.
Kessler had a chance to return to the University of Michigan when he helped litigate the school's landmark affirmative-action cases a few years ago. It was heady work for his undergrad alma mater, but familiar, too. The U-M law school "is as close to a mirror image" of the one at Berkeley as exists. When the California school lost the ability to consider race in admissions following the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996, the next incoming class had only one African-American. Michigan's law school won its case, thanks in part to Berkeley alum Kessler.
JAMES A. SAMBORN DICKINSON WRIGHT
Illustration by: Kent Barton
Under his lawyer suit, James A. Samborn's collar is blue, and not of the buttoned-down variety. In a legal career that began in 1974, he's developed a specialty in construction law, an interest dating to the summers he spent working on area building projects. His undergraduate degree is in engineering, which complements his work nicely.
"It's the complexity of the projects [that I like]," he says. "The way one piece affects others, and seeing how they can work together better; that's a big part of my enjoyment. And sometimes the gratification seems as much visceral as intellectual: "I get to put on the jeans and the boots and smell the diesel again."
Samborn, currently managing partner at Dickinson Wright, tried on more than a hard hat before settling on the law. He briefly attended business school at the University of Michigan, but finally decided he could more fully combine his interests in law. He joined Dickinson Wright in 1974 and hasn't looked back.
Michigan's soft economy hasn't meant a drop in business for a lawyer with his interests. Although Detroit is hardly Dubai, the firm does represent parties engaged in highway construction and bridge-building, all steady economic sectors in the state. Running the firm doesn't leave a lot of time left over for clients, anyway.
"I've always had an interest in the business operations of the firm," says Samborn. With 245 lawyers in 40 practice areas spread across six offices, keeping it all moving forward is more than a full-time job. Still, after eight years on the job, Samborn says he looks forward to getting back into full-time practice eventually. "I'd like to spend more time with my clients," he says.
ERNIE L. BROOKS BROOKS KUSHMAN
Illustration by: Kent Barton
A brilliant attorney who was often ranked among the top lawyers in the country, Ernie L. Brooks had a commanding a presence inside and outside the courtroom.
"He would walk into a room and everyone knew who was in charge," says Jim Kushman, Brooks' longtime partner. In early August, Brooks, president of Brooks Kushman, an intellectual-property and commercial-law firm in Southfield, died in a car accident in Farmington Hills.
"Ernie was exceptional at cross-examining witnesses and taking the smallest nugget of doubt and focusing on that," says John Halan, a Brooks Kushman partner and expert in intellectual-property litigation. "He had a gift for finding someone's weakness." Halan adds that Brooks preferred to work on a case as if the dispute were headed for trial. "Most litigators prepare for a settlement," Halan says. "But Ernie always wanted to go to trial."
Perhaps best-known for winning one of the largest intellectual-property judgments on record, Brooks led a litigation team that won a $158-million judgment against Microsoft and Autodesk, on behalf of Commerce Township-based z4 Technologies. In 2006, a federal jury found that Microsoft and Autodesk infringed on two patents in Office and AutoCad software programs held by z4.
The pair started their own firm in 1983 with five intellectual-property attorneys. "We were practicing together with another firm, and there were some disagreements, as there always are," Kushman says. "[Ernie] was very important in building our practice (today the firm has more than 50 attorneys)." As a testament to his standing, Brooks made the Best Lawyers in America list for several years.
SUBSCRIBE TO DBusiness
DBusiness is redefining the traditional business magazine, with progressive editorial coverage and out-of-the-box design. If you want your company to keep pace with metro Detroit's ever-expanding business world, subscribe today, and get our engaging profiles, industry outlooks, and in-depth coverage of expanding and emerging regional and international markets delivered to your mailbox.
