Andrew Blum
Please describe any civic or charitable activities you are involved in.
First, I continued my service on the Diocese-wide School Board which governs the Catholic elementary and secondary schools across an 11-county area in West Michigan as well as on the Development Committee of the Board.
Second, I served on the Governing Board of Directors for Samaritas, which is the new name for Lutheran Social Services of Michigan. Samaritas is a state-wide non-profit organization with a $100 million budget and 2,000 employees. Samaritas offers 70 programs in over 40 statewide locations and is the largest adoption, foster care, and refugee resettlement agency in the state. As a Board of Director member, I am responsible for supervising the budget and managing and supervising the executive leadership of the organization. I was also asked to serve on their Campaign Cabinet for their new Capital campaign. The Cabinet will set strategic direction and manage the new campaign.
Third, in 2018, I continued my service as the Vice-Chairman and Chair of the Executive Committee for the national Board for Shakespeare at Notre Dame. In that capacity, I am in charge of supervising the affairs of the Shakespeare Initiative, especially in between national Board meetings.
Fourth, I continued my service on the Curriculum Committee for a 350-person elementary school here in Grand Rapids.
Fifth, I also continued chairing the Universal Notre Dame Night Dinner and serving on the Board of Directors for the local Notre Dame Alumni Club following my term as President.
Sixth, I also served as one of the Executive officers for the Basilica of St. Adalbert's Knights of Columbus Council. In that role, I helped supervise the Coats for Kids Campaign which clothed 500 needy children in Grand Rapids with winter coats, gloves, hats, etc. as well as the three fundraisers that provided funds for that effort.
I also coordinated the Grand Rapids office's support of pro bono efforts like the MIRC naturalization clinic which we staff each year and sometimes twice a year here in Grand Rapids.
Please describe the professional benefits that you derive from undertaking pro bono work.
While no one really becomes involved in pro bono efforts because of the professional benefits’ aspect, there have certainly been professional benefits which have arisen either directly or indirectly from my pro bono efforts.
First, my pro bono work has allowed me to gain professional knowledge in areas which I previously lacked any significant knowledge like immigration law and to some degree, federal tax policy.
Second, the pro bono work has allowed me to meet many folks from across the political spectrum which I might not have “interacted with” otherwise.
Third, the pro bono work I have undertaken has certainly helped increase my visibility both internally within the Firm as well as in the Grand Rapids’ community. In particular, some of my work has resulted in some favorable press coverage as well as some speaking engagements.
Fourth, and perhaps often overlooked from a professional benefit perspective, the pro bono work leaves you feeling good about your community and the people in it. Too often, this feel-good factor is overlooked as a professional benefit even though it permeates the pro bono work and then carries inevitably over to your other more traditional billable legal work for firm clients.
Please describe the most rewarding pro bono engagement that you’ve undertaken recently and why it was rewarding.
Being involved with the Hamama litigation along with the other members of the Miller Canfield team has been the highlight of my litigation year and maybe my career. Helping to obtain a nationwide stay so that the petitioners could have their “day in court” to plead their cases and in some cases prevail such that some petitioners will be to remain in the United States is rewarding in a unique way.
Knowing that you made a tangible difference in those petitioners’ lives and those of their families has, at least to me, an incalculable value and reward, especially when you see the faces of their children. While I have seen that reaction and felt that sense of reward with other pro bono efforts, none that I had previously participated in had ever had that wide-ranging and arguably life-changing effect on so many people.
Please describe why firm colleagues should undertake pro bono engagements.
I think our colleagues should undertake pro bono assignments for three main reasons. First, while it may be a cliché, it is the right thing to do. Second, one will receive an incredible amount of personal and professional satisfaction in doing so. Third, if the first two elements do not move one to undertake a pro bono effort, one will receive very unexpected professional benefits from doing so as outlined above in my earlier response on that topic.
Russell Bucher
Please describe the professional and personal benefits that you derive from undertaking pro bono work.
The professional benefits of my pro bono work have been unexpectedly immense. Interacting with lawyers and clients outside the typical law-firm setting has enhanced my understanding of the breadth of the legal profession and added to my range of experiences as a legal organizer, thinker, and writer. The primary case I worked on called for highly detailed legal research and writing, as well as enabling me to learn about immigration law in great detail. Working to prepare the Petitioners' Sixth Circuit appellate briefs with the other lawyers on the Hamama case taught me many things, but one of the most important was just how much skill it takes to put together an effective piece of legal writing when so many different people want to weigh in before the brief goes out the door. On a personal level, the benefits of pro bono work strike me almost as self-explaining: there is simply no substitute for the satisfaction of helping a client secure her rights when those rights may well otherwise have gone unprotected--or even unasserted.
Please describe the most rewarding pro bono engagement that you've undertaken recently and why it was rewarding.
Like many other lawyers and staff at Miller Canfield, I count the Hamama case as my most rewarding recent pro bono engagement. It gave me the chance to work not only with some of the firm's most talented, engaged, and energetic attorneys, but with a number of the most widely respected, sharpest, and most dedicated civil-rights lawyers in the entire country. And the stakes could not be higher: for many of the petitioners, the case means the difference between death in exile and a free life lived out in this country. The outcomes of the legal process at the district-court level were very rewarding, especially knowing that I had played some small part in those outcomes. I also very much enjoyed participating in the ACLU of Michigan's annual dinner, where I had the chance to meet Sam Hamama and his family in person. It was inspiring to be around so many people who dedicate their lives and careers to helping people like Mr. Hamama.
Please describe why firm colleagues should undertake pro bono engagements.
For many attorneys just getting started in private practice, pro bono work offers an incomparable opportunity to take primary responsibility for a case. New associates like myself can learn from this experience just how much responsibility rests on a partner's shoulders when she takes on a new client matter. When working with a team of lawyers, as I did in the Hamama case, firm colleagues can also bolster the reputation of Miller Canfield and represent the firm in its commitment to benefit the wider society.
Please describe your charitable and civic involvements and the satisfaction and benefits you derive from these activities.
Apart from my pro bono work for the firm, my wife and I are active members in Ann Arbor's Jewish community; we find satisfaction volunteering at community service events, whether at our daughter's school or at one of the local synagogues. As I progress as a lawyer, I also hope to use more of my increasing knowledge about non-profit governance and immigration rights to assist charitable organizations in our community and beyond.
Feel free to say anything else that bears on your willingness to become materially involved in pro bono, civic or charitable activities or should be considered by the committee in its deliberations.
In my practice-development plan for 2019, I placed front and center my intention to work one-on-one with an individual pro bono client. I am particularly interested in representing a pro se habeas corpus petitioner in the federal courts. From the time I interned for Judge Michelson (ER Mich.) to the present, I have closely followed the development of the Sixth Circuit's habeas jurisprudence, and I would like to put that knowledge to work in a concrete, impactful way. I also look forward to taking on individual civil-rights and immigration cases, drawing on the connections I have already established with the ACLU and with professors at the University of Michigan Law School.
Conor Fitzpatrick
Please describe the professional benefits that you derive from undertaking pro bono work.
Pro bono work has given me the opportunity to gain experience arguing in federal courts and experience leading a complex case at a very early stage in my career. Just from the main pro bono matter I have worked on, I have taken and defended numerous depositions, argued multiple times in federal court on dispositive and non-dispositive motions, filed my first solo federal court of appeals brief, and will argue in the Sixth Circuit this year. To use a marginally adequate maritime simile, pro bono work has given me the opportunity to learn how to captain the ship as opposed to just being the first mate.
Please describe the most rewarding pro bono engagement that you've undertaken recently and why it was rewarding.
A prisoner rights case, Berkshire v. Dahl, is the main pro bono matter I have worked on and it is also the most rewarding. It concerns the deprivation of my client, Mr. Berkshire's, First and Eighth Amendment rights by employees and agents of the Michigan Department of Corrections. It was evident that Mr. Berkshire was something of an annoyance to the prison staff. He had a long history of complicated mental health issues and a troubled childhood, but he was bright and well-spoken. He often used his intellect to speak up for either himself or his fellow prisoners and complain about conditions that were deficient under prison policy or other laws. It appears that prison staff became fed up with Mr. Berkshire's "complaining" after a letter he wrote to the unit chief and they discharged him from his inpatient treatment unit into the general population, causing a fast downward spiral in his mental health culminating in a suicide attempt. The ability to write your government and complain about what the government has done or failed to do without the government retaliating against you is a right core to who we are as a country. It is a right that, unlike many others, is not surrendered by the incarcerated. Being able to vindicate that core constitutional right for Mr. Berkshire and having his case hopefully provide a basis to protect others like him who decide to exercise their right to speak out against unlawful prison conditions has been truly rewarding.
Please describe why firm colleagues should undertake pro bono engagements.
The freedoms we enjoy under the Constitution as Americans are not self-executing. Nothing in nature prevents a government from jailing political opponents without trial, stifling unpopular (or unwanted) views, or subjecting the arts to a board of censors. Human history has shown such practices to be the norm rather than the exception. Not surprisingly, those that find their constitutional rights most imminently threatened are often not the well-to-do or the popular. It is the political or religious minority, the dissenter communist, the radical flag-burner, and the ex-con that often finds him or herself under the boot of oppressive laws the majority has ostensibly approved, and without the financial resources to do anything about it. When those groups or individuals have their rights threatened, it is critical for well-resourced counsel to step in and represent them, lest individual rights become a luxury good or subject to the whims of the majority of the day.
Erika Giroux
Please describe the professional and personal benefits that you derive from undertaking pro bono work.
From a professional standpoint, pro bono work has provided a really unique opportunity to work with colleagues in the firm who I may not have otherwise had a chance to connect with, to engage with other lawyers in different sectors of the metro-Detroit legal community, and to witness excellent advocacy and representation. My experience working with other attorneys on the Hamama v. Adducci litigation has shaped the type of advocate I would like to be for my clients and helped me begin developing the skill set of a well-rounded litigator.
From a personal perspective, pro bono work has helped me to grow as an individual and to appreciate how important the law can be to shaping people's realities and the meaningful difference that we as lawyers can make in helping people navigate those complexities. The hands-on nature of pro bono work has also helped me to really enjoy the practice of law and the day-to-day of being a lawyer.
Please describe the most rewarding pro bono engagement that you've undertaken recently and why it was rewarding.
Over the past year, I have had the opportunity and the privilege to be involved with the Hamama v. Adducci litigation. It has been extremely formative for me as a young lawyer to witness the incredible advocacy of the lead attorneys on the case, including Kim Scott; to be a member of a complex litigation team; and to participate in a case—and be a part of a firm—that takes our commitment to upholding the values of the Constitution seriously. It has also been amazing to actually meet, interact with, and hear the stories of the families that we have been able to help and keep together, and to see that all of the work and dedication that has been invested in the case make a real difference.
Please describe why firm colleagues should undertake pro bono engagements.
Miller Canfield is an integral part of the Detroit community, and pro bono work provides a really unique opportunity to engage with that community on an individual level in a way that we may not typically get to do so. Pro bono engagements give us a chance to connect with and make a tangible difference in the community on a micro level in addition to the macro-level work of the firm and can be a really powerful reminder of the ways in which our work as lawyers has the ability to impact people's lives.
Please describe your charitable and civic involvements and the satisfaction and benefits you derive from these activities.
I am a member of the Detroit and Federal Bar Associations and the Detroit Bar's Inn of Court program. I am also an active member of the University of Michigan Law School alumni network and the Divine Child parish community in Dearborn, as well as a frequent visitor at Addington senior care center. It is very important to me to be able to engage with people from a variety of backgrounds at all the different stages of their lives; to understand their goals and needs; and to do what I can to help them achieve those marks.
Leo Goddeyne
Please describe the professional and personal benefits that you derive from undertaking pro bono work.
A large amount of my regular practice involves working with tax exempt, charitable organizations. Much of my pro bono work also focuses on assisting these same types of organizations. I enjoy working with these types of organizations because they are trying to improve our community and the people who live there. I also enjoy working with the people who are associated with these organizations because they are passionate about what they do, often acting selflessly, without much compensation, to try and bring improvement and change to our communities. I believe that we should all contribute to our community and if we have special skills that can be used to make an impact that we should use these. My skills are legal and they can often make a difference in whether someone's vision becomes real or not, because without legal advice and assistance on the incorporation and filing for a tax exemption, the person may not even undertake the project. Having a lawyer assist with those critical steps that require legal guidance can make the difference between whether the organization becomes operational or if it never materializes.
I also find that the skills I use doing pro bono work carry over and help me with my regular legal work. Sometimes the issues involved in a pro bono project will appear in a project for a paying client. Having seen the issue before, makes it easier to deal with it the next time.
Pro bono service gives me the opportunity to meet other members of the community including other lawyers. I interact with community leaders who are also volunteering and this gives us a chance to know each other better and for them to see the type of legal work that I am capable of providing. I also work with other lawyers at pro bono events, such as free legal clinics sponsored by our local Bar Association. I enjoy getting to work with lawyers who I might not otherwise interact with on a professional basis.
Please describe the most rewarding pro bono engagement that you've undertaken recently and why it was rewarding.
My most rewarding recent pro bono project has been to help create a nonprofit corporation to act as the public defender for Kalamazoo County and provide criminal defense services for indigent defendants. This corporation will be a major change in how these services are presently provided in Kalamazoo County.
For the past several years, there has been a call for Kalamazoo County to change the way that it provides criminal defense services for indigent defendants. The current system uses a group of private attorneys who are engaged under a contract to perform these services. These attorneys are often underpaid for the amount of work they put in.
A few years ago, the State of Michigan was involved in a law suit that challenged how indigent defense services were funded and provided around the State. It was alleged that the underfunding of these services often resulted in lawyers not providing adequate defense services for their clients and ineffective assistance of counsel. This lawsuit resulted in a consent judgment in which the State agreed to provide more resources for indigent criminal defense services.
Based on this, it was assumed that the County of Kalamazoo might create a public defender office. After several years of talking about this, the County decided against creating a defender office that would be a part of the County government (like the Prosecutor's Office). Instead, it appeared that the County wanted a nonprofit organization to operate this service and that it would fund its operation with grants, using money from the State and County. During the summer of 2018, there were rumors that the County was ready to ask nonprofit groups to submit proposals to provide indigent defense services; however, nothing was definite.
A group (of which I was a part) consisting of local attorneys and retired judges met to discuss the possibility that the County might ask nonprofit groups to submit bids. In anticipation of this possibility, it was decided that a nonprofit corporation should be formed so it could bid on the project. I prepared the documents for the incorporation and also the application for tax exemption.
In early September 2018, the County released a Request for Proposal that sought proposals from nonprofit corporations to provide criminal defense services for indigent defendants. At this same time, we were working to incorporate a nonprofit corporation and also to prepare a proposal that could be submitted to the County in response to its request for proposal.
On September 25, 2018, Kalamazoo County Defender, Inc. ("KCDI") was incorporated. A few days later, KCDI submitted a proposal to the County. This proposal offered to not only provide indigent defense services but to also offer holistic services to its clients. Since all clients would be poor, it was understood that poverty could be the cause of their crime, and even if poverty was not a cause, the defendant's poverty would have a collateral impact on other parts of their lives, including an effect on their jobs and ability to obtain housing and benefits. For this reason, KCDI's staff will include social workers who can assist clients and their families with issues that may flow from the client's arrest. This will include coordinating with other social service agencies in the County to step in and provide special services that may be needed by a client and his/her family, including working with the defendant on how to avoid any recidivism.
On January 28, 2019, KCDI signed a contract with the County to provide criminal defense services. At the present time, KCDI's staff consists only of an executive director, but it plans to quickly grow to over 40 professional and support staff and begin operations on July 1, 2019.
On February 5, 2019, the County and KCDI held a press conference to announce the signing of the contract.
KCDI is a significant change for Kalamazoo County and the way in which it serves criminal defendants. KCDI will level the playing field with the Prosecutor's Office by providing quality good paying jobs to attorneys and staff and allowing them to do their jobs without being overloaded with too many cases so they can focus on the cases they are assigned.
KCDI's Board of Directors includes a retired Kalamazoo County Circuit Judge, several local attorneys, and the director of Kalamazoo County Mental Health Services.
There were many people involved in creating KCDI. I assisted with the incorporation and application for tax exemption. Others worked on drafting the proposal to the County and more continue to volunteer to assist with other issues KCDI will be facing. This was a community effort with everyone assisting in the best way that each could.
For more about KCDI, see:
https://wwmt.com/news/local/non-profit-kalamazoo-defender-signs-contract-for-county-public-defender
and
https://www.kalamazoodefender.org/
Please describe why firm colleagues should undertake pro bono engagements.
The reasons listed above.
I also find pro bono service to be very humbling and educating. I believe that we often do not realize how fortunate we are to have years of education, good jobs that pay above-average incomes and live in nice homes and neighborhoods. Performing pro bono service, especially working with those who are poor, have limited educations and resources or for organizations that serve the poor, can make you realize how hard life can be for many in our community and how one bad decision can cause them to suffer greatly. We may not even know that these people exist, until we meet them and they ask for help to deal with a problem.
It is hard to turn your back on someone and deny them help when you have the skills to help them.
Some lawyers do not like to provide pro bono service because it can cause them to have to deal with issues that are outside of their comfort zone. I would still encourage them to volunteer. Sometimes when I volunteer at a legal clinic and face an issue that I have not seen since law school, I find that I can contact other members of the firm or of the local bar and ask them for help. They are always willing to share their time and knowledge to assist clients from the clinics. It is rewarding to have a safety net made up of so many attorneys (and others) who are willing to share their time and talents to help those in need.
Please describe your charitable and civic involvements and the satisfaction and benefits you derive from these activities.
I serve on the Board of Directors for Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes. This provides food to many food pantries in Kalamazoo County who, in turn, deliver this to those who do not have enough food to eat.
I am a former Assistant Scout Master and current volunteer for Boy Scout Troop 205.
I also attend St. Augustine Catholic Church.
David O'Brien
Please describe the professional benefits that you derive from undertaking pro bono work.
As with any community service commitment, there is an immense sense of personal satisfaction and accomplishment that comes with helping others. That satisfaction is all the greater when providing a specialized service, such as legal representation, which only a small percentage of the population is in a position to give and which is often unavailable to those who need it the most. We are all very fortunate to be able to earn a comfortable living in the legal system. With that privilege comes a responsibility to help those who are less fortunate gain meaningful access to it.
Please describe the most rewarding pro bono engagement that you've undertaken recently and why it was rewarding.
For the past six years, I have been handling two pro bono matters involving the resentencing of individuals serving mandatory life without parole sentences for homicide offenses that they committed as juveniles. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that such mandatory sentences violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In the wake of that ruling, one of my clients, Bosie Smith, was resentenced to a term of years in March of 2017 and recently released on parole this past October. I was there to greet him as he walked out the front door of the prison. My other client, Kevin Boyd, is scheduled to be resentenced in April of this year. Much work remains to prepare for that hearing as the prosecution refuses to recognize the efforts that Kevin has undertaken to rehabilitate himself over the past two decades and is seeking to re-impose the same life without parole sentence that was handed down in 1996.
These cases are among the most impactful that I have handled in my career because they are incredibly meaningful for both clients. When I met Bosie for the first time in 2013, he was going to die in prison and had no hope of release. After hundreds of hours of work, he is now a free man with a job, an apartment, and a group of close friends and family members committed to his success. I received a telephone call from Bosie on Christmas morning last year - his first Christmas in 26 years outside the walls of the Michigan Department of Corrections - simply to wish me a happy holiday and once again thank me for my work on his case. It is the single best telephone call I have had in my 18-year career as an attorney. Not only is it incredibly satisfying to be able to help someone achieve such a life-changing outcome, but the personal friendship that I developed during the course of my work with Bosie is one that has endured beyond the conclusion of his case.
Please describe why firm colleagues should undertake pro bono engagements.
Aside from the personal feeling of accomplishment that comes from helping others, pro bono work is essential to advancing the perception of the legal profession. Too often, lawyers are portrayed as mercenaries for sale to the highest bidder who will say anything and do anything to advance the positions of their client. Everyone who holds a law degree should donate their time to help others not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it reflects positively on the entire profession. In addition, I have found that after many years of litigation, it is easy to become jaded, particularly in the context of commercial disputes that are all-too-often handled like a personal grudge match by opposing counsel and involve fights between parties for whom litigation is a necessary cost of doing business. Pro bono engagements typically involve the advancement of broader societal goals, whether it be defending a constitutional right, protecting someone who has been the victim of domestic violence, or organizing a non-profit that will go on to help hundreds of people. It is a stark reminder of the power that comes with our profession and the good that can be accomplished through our work.
Tom Turner
Please describe the professional and personal benefits that you derive from undertaking pro bono work.
Pro bono work provides me an opportunity, first and foremost, to do what I have always felt most called to do: help those less fortunate than myself. Service is both professionally and personally central to my identity. I cannot imagine, for myself, a legal career which does not feature pro bono work prominently and I cannot imagine a life without service to others. Assisting others also has the effect of reminding me of the profound privilege of my station which, has the added benefit of reinforcing the necessity of service.
An added benefit is the opportunity to hone, develop and diversify my legal skills. My pro bono work has paid direct dividends for my paying work by encouraging me to think holistically about corporate law, while assisting small companies and non-profits, and to think creatively about the structure and uses of various financing mechanisms while helping non-profits to develop lending programs to benefit their stakeholders.
My pro bono work has also led to all of the external recognition which, I am sure, will pay dividends into the future as I develop a practice and market myself as a professional.
Please describe the most rewarding pro bono engagement that you've undertaken recently and why it was rewarding.
This is a difficult question as all of my pro bono work has been profoundly meaningful in different ways. That said, the opportunity which I had in the summer of 2018 to work with a detained asylum seeker was among the most meaningful work I have ever done. Securing my client's release and assisting in the process of reuniting her with her minor son was deeply touching and instilled me with an appreciation for both liberty and justice which I had never felt so deeply before. The fact that that work was also a part of a larger effort coordinated across the country reinforced the value of the work and made me feel supported, even when the work threatened to become overwhelming.
Please describe why firm colleagues should undertake pro bono engagements.
I believe every lawyer owes a debt to our community and society – because our community and society endow us with the privileges attending our profession – and that that debt can only be paid by undertaking pro bono work. Further, as discussed above, pro bono work offers substantial collateral benefits, both professionally and personally, which cannot be understated.
Please describe your charitable and civic involvements and the satisfaction and benefits you derive from these activities.
I serve on the boards of Fort Street Presbyterian Church in Detroit, the Michigan Sierra Club and the New Leader's Council of Detroit (and various subcommittees related to each). I find that each of these positions satisfies a similar desire as my pro bono legal work, that is, a desire to be of service. My civic engagement allows me to be in my community, advocating for development and sustainability in meaningful ways and helping those less fortunate than myself. Each of these positions, unlike my pro bono work, also provides opportunities for ongoing long-term engagement in substantive issues, a pleasant change from the strictly limited and regimented nature of legal work. I also have made valuable connections with other like-minded people in my community and across the state, which may provide professional dividends, but perhaps more importantly, has enriched my personal and civic life and amplified the amount of impact I am able to accomplish.
Feel free to say anything else that bears on your willingness to become materially involved in pro bono, civic or charitable activities or should be considered by the committee in its deliberations.
Regardless of motivation, attorneys in every area should be able to derive meaningful benefits from pro bono legal work and civic engagement. Whether those benefits are in the form of personal fulfillment, professional development or practice development, any attorney is likely to get much more out of pro bono legal work and civic engagement than they put in. More important though, is the benefit we can provide to our communities and those around us. As attorneys have a valuable and rare skill-set which, when applied with vigor, is capable of making positive impact that is sometimes difficult to foresee before rolling up one's sleeves.
