2013 Sustaining Members Chui Karega Zach Mall Roy Roulhac Issa Haddad Tamara A. French
Goodman Kalahar Henry Messer Richards Soble & Barbara Kessler Robert & Rozanne Sedler UAW International Claudia Morcom John Charters Zamler, Mellen & Shiffman Mathieu & Lee Valentine & Associates, P.C.
Welcoming Statement by the President of the National Lawyers Guild Detroit & Michigan Chapter Dear Members, Friends, and Supporters of the National Lawyers Guild:
O
n behalf of the Board of Directors and general membership of the National Lawyers Guild Detroit & Michigan Chapter, I extend my heart-felt welcome to our 74th Annual Dinner. Every year, our Annual Dinner brings together attorneys, legal workers, and law students who are involved in social justice work across the State of Michigan. This year is no exception. We have in attendance NLG members who volunteered many difficult hours to the legal fight to have the Michigan Emergency Manager Law declared unconstitutional; and then, when that effort was stymied in the Michigan Supreme Court, convinced the Courts to place the citizens’ initiative to rescind the law on the November ballot. This effort won a resounding victory when a clear majority of Michigan citizens voted to repeal this undemocratic, racially discriminatory law. Also in attendance are NLG members who have assisted the Occupy Detroit Eviction Defense Committee and Moratorium Now! to defend homeowners facing foreclosure. We also have NLG members who have worked for years to have the notorious anti-affirmative action Proposal 2 declared unconstitutional as violative of equal protection, and who recently prevailed before the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, en banc in: Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), et al., v Regents of the University of Michigan, et al., (6th Cir, November 15, 2012). We also have in attendance many of the Guild’s dedicated Legal Observers, who monitor police-protester interaction at all kinds of progressive protests, and who stand their ground even in the foulest weather. This year, our Legal Observers assisted protests sponsored by: Occupy Detroit; Operation Push; Good Jobs Now; Stand Up For Democracy; Women in Black; Michigan AFL-CIO; National Action Network; protest rallies by high school students in Dearborn and Southwest Detroit; Service Employees International Union (SEIU); the Autoworkers Caravan; and many other grassroots movements. This year we are proud to be able to honor retired Michigan Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Kelly for her many years of service to the people of Michigan on both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. Justice Kelly’s name appears on many opinions of the Courts protecting the rights of workers, consumers, injury victims, racial minorities, women, the criminally accused, and many others. We are also proud to honor Stand Up for Democracy as our Unsung Heroes, for their successful campaign against the Emergency Manager law. This year’s keynote address will be given by Suffolk University Law Professor and former NLG national president, Michael Avery. Professor Avery edited and was a contributing author to the 2008 book We Dissent: Talking Back to the Rehnquist Court. NLG Detroit & Michigan • 2013 • 1
As concerned progressive grassroots activists, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. The 1% of the population who control a vastly disproportionate share of the wealth and corporate power of the country, together with the craven politicians who serve them, have not given up–they have already re-enacted an Emergency Manager law, in slightly altered form (so much for the vote of the people!), and have gone on the offensive, enacting state laws prohibiting unions from negotiating closed shop agreements, and restricting womens’ reproductive choices. And four Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are clearly intent on outlawing affirmative action programs, repealing Roe v. Wade; and rolling back the clock on many other progressive reforms of the last 80 years. For 75 years, the National Lawyers Guild has been the legal bulwark of grassroots movements for social justice. In order to continue this work, we need and appreciate your generous support. Together, we can transform this country into one in which “human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests,” and in which “the law as an instrument for the protection of the people, rather than for their repression.” I thank all of your for attending this evening’s ceremony, and for your generous support of the Detroit & Michigan Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.
In Solidarity, John Royal President Detroit & Michigan Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild
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National Lawyers Guild Detroit & Michigan Chapter 2012-2013 Board Members John Royal – President Julie Hurwitz - Vice President Liz Cabot – Secretary Shaun Godwin – Treasurer Al Cholger Deb Choly Sarah Coffey Desiree Ferguson Vanessa Fluker Bill Goodman Kathy Murphy Tonya Phillips Ron Scott Victoria Suber
PRESENTING
MICHAEL AVERY
Michael Avery is a Professor of Law at Suffolk Law School in Boston and is a former President of the National Lawyers Guild. Prof. Avery has been active in the Lawyers Guild since he began practicing law in 1970. He practiced as a civil rights lawyer and criminal defense attorney before joining the Suffolk faculty in 1998. He graduated from Yale College in 1966 and Yale Law School in 1970. Professor Avery is a co-author of Police Misconduct: Law and Litigation, a leading treatise on civil rights law, a coauthor of the Handbook of Massachusetts Evidence, the leading treatise on that subject, and has authored several law review articles on police misconduct. He frequently lectures across the country on civil rights and civil liberties issues. Prof. Avery is the editor and a contributing author to We Dissent, a critical review of civil liberties and civil rights cases from the Rehnquist Court, and a co-author of The Federalist Society: How Conservatives Took the Law Back from Liberals, which will be available from Vanderbilt University Press in March, 2013.
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Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Kelly ‘Off the Record’
2013 HONOREE
An interview by Julie Hurwitz Julie Hurwitz: Justice Kelly, thank you so much allowing us the privilege of honoring you on your retirement as one of the leading voices on the Michigan Supreme Court in advancing the rule of law and the preservation of fundamental constitutional rights in our state. And thank you also for your unwavering commitment to the idea of individual’s rights over the unfettered power of large corporations and government abuse. Tell us what were the major influences in your life that helped to mold your legal, political and judicial philosophy and inspired you to enter the legal profession. Justice Kelly: I think the first influence that occurs to me is my father who was a strong supporter of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and when I was little would talk to me about what it was like to be a laborer. He worked in factories. He worked as a stationary engineer in the Detroit Public Schools. He brought me in to his workplace when I was little and took me to union meetings occasionally and talked to me about what life was like for people who did what he did and what it meant to him to have a government that recognized the needs of laboring people.
to run for the state board of education. I was only 26 years old when I was elected and I had a lot to learn about serving in public life at that point but it was a lesson to me – those twelve years after – of how state government works – the important role of the law in state government.
We had a brand new constitution going into effect then. The constitution we have now was just becoming effective in ’65. The State Board of Education I was on was a new enlarged body expanded and greatly enlarged in scope body and there were challenges to its Then when I was in high school I was very influenced by role: legal challenges. At the same time that was going the affair with J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who on there were many social issues. Busing was a major oversaw the development at Los Alamos, who lost his issue. During the years I was on the board sex education security clearance because he spoke up for his rights. It in the schools was a major issue. was a lesson to me in what government can do wrong The short of it is that I became more aware of the role of as well as what it can do right. the law in not just education but in our lives generally Then I became as you know a teacher and was very and it turned me around so that I decided not to interested in education and as a consequence I decided continue in education but to go to law school.
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Women who considered even going to law school ran into barriers. For instance I had friends and relatives who counseled me against going to law school because it wasn’t feminine in effect and it would harden me, they said. In law school I thought I was treated well but once out I realized there was a real barrier to women. There were few women on the bench and those who were often ridiculed by – not everyone of course – but by others in the community. There were few women partners in any of the law firms. And there was an attitude that we can’t make you a partner because our clients want a man to be representing them. . . . somebody who can fight and implicitly women can’t fight.
our victories we’re apt to lose them. And I think we’re seeing it happen in Michigan. Michigan is not the strong state it was just a decade ago. Julie Hurwitz: You’re about to retire - a great loss to all of us.
It was difficult. Here I was earning a living and having a paycheck coming in. And I enjoyed teaching moreover so it represented to me starting over which to me in the late 20s seemed maybe not the best thing to do. Some in my family counseled me against it certainly. And I had the remarkable experience of being in a class where some of my classmates were my former students who I had taught French to at like Albion Justice Kelly: Well, thank you. college in eastern Michigan – went on to law school and here we were peers and I think some of them got Julie Hurwitz: What next for you? a big kick out of my being grilled in the classroom by professors as they sat there in the same classroom. Justice Kelly: Good question. I’m obviously pondering that now. I’m sure I’ll be developing in the months Julie Hurwitz: We are now at a time in history as you to come. Developing just what next. Right now I’ve are preparing to step down from the bench, both in the committed myself to doing some teaching at Wayne State of Michigan and throughout our country where Law School, my alma mater, which I’m looking forward the rights of working people, poor people and people to because as I said earlier that I’ve always enjoyed of color are facing some very significant challenges. teaching. And now I have something different to teach Given all that, what are your thoughts about the current of course than I did before so I’m looking forward to that. . . . the rights that we have all fought so hard for, and whether the rights of working people, the rights of Julie Hurwitz: If you had one piece of advice to give women, the rights of poor people. Are they at risk? to our young lawyers and law students who are here tonight at the National Lawyers Guild dinner, what Justice Kelly: Oh I think they’re definitely at risk. In fact, would that advice be to them? there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years is that none of the victories we earn are permanent. They always Justice Kelly: Well, I’d say congratulations first for being have to be guarded. If we aren’t vigilant in protecting among this group because certainly the Lawyer’s Guild
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Celebrating Justice Marilyn Kelly for her many years of diligent public service: upholding the rights of working people, women, racial and ethnic minorities, seniors, the LGBTQ community, injury victims, consumers, and persons accused of crimes.
has produced some of the most effective people in the legal world that I’ve met, and I think anyone who is part of that group should, number one, congratulate himself or herself for having joined it and number two, as the years go by, don’t lose your vision. Don’t lose your value system. I think there’s probably not a great danger of that but we do get drawn away over the years by different influences and sometimes we’re caused to question whether we have made the right choice of some of these values. I’m convinced over the years that these are some of the values that the Lawyers Guild ascribes to are some of the most basic and important values in the whole legal world. In the social world too.
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“I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad company he would be a United States Senator.” -Mother Jones, labor organizer, political activist and hell-raiser.
Law Offices of John F. Royal 615 Griswold st., Ste. 1724 Detroit, Mi 48226 313.962.3738 jfroyal2000@gmail.com
STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY Michigan Forward is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan progressive public policy think tank. Michigan Forward was created as an organization in 2008 built to research, strategize and advocate around statewide public policy issues from the perspective of the urban center. Michigan Forward is creating a public policy environment that is responsive to the intricacies of the urban center. Our belief is that creating effective public policy for the urban center leads to creating a Michigan that is revitalized, renewed and thriving. Michigan Forward is led by its Chairman Brandon Jessup and its Board of Directors. In the early
THANK YOU FOR STANDING UP FOR DEMOCRACY
winter of 2011 when Michigan Forward learned of “The Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act” formerly Public Act 4 (PA4) of 2011 an immediate stance was taken to repeal this egregious public policy. Banning together with other like minded residents, labor, civic, and members of the faith based community Stand Up for Democracy was birthed. Jessup also served as chair for Stand Up for Democracy, and serving as Treasurer was Larry Roherig, who is also the Treasurer for Michigan AFSCME Council 25. A statewide grassroots campaign collected over 226,000 signatures to place the repeal of PA 4 on the November 2012 ballot.
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As the battle to repeal PA 4 moved from the streets to the courtroom , Stand Up for Democracy’s outstanding legal team survived many obstacles. The legal team was led by Michigan AFSCME Council 25 attorney Herb Sanders, Atty. John Philo from the Sugar Law Center and Atty. Melvin Butch Hollowell, General Counsel for the Detroit Branch NAACP. With a little more than two months the statewide coalition continued its high intensity efforts and mobilized voters around the state to Vote No on 1 to repeal PA4. PA4 was successfully repealed on November 6, winning in 75 of Michigan’s 83 counties. Despite the Governor and his ill advised GOP members in the Michigan House and Senate usurping the will of the people and reenacting the same policy, Michigan Forward and those who came together for Stand Up for Democracy will continue to fight.
THOMAS G. KRALL
Attorney & Counselor at Law Thank You National Lawyers Guild, for your continual support of Occupy Movement! Join us for our weekly General Assemblies every Saturday at 12:30pm, located at 1515 Broadway Street. Detroit, MI 48226. http://www.occupy-detroit.us
Call to arrange a legal consultation
(888) GO KRALL OR
(888) 465-7255 42500 HAYES ROAD • SUITE 100 CLINTON TOWNSHIP, MICHIGAN 48038-6067
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CONSTITUTIONAL LITIGATION ASSOCIATES, P.C. Hugh “Buck” Davis, Cynthia Heenan, John Philo and our excellent staff, Jillian Rosati, Sarah Coffey, Lori Villar and Diane Loftus Cooperating attorneys – Scott Mackela, Tim Holloway, Issa Haddad, and Shaun Godwin
TO THE MOST HONORABLE MARILYN JEAN KELLY: Long distance runner in the fight for human and civil rights! Proud and public member of the most progressive sections of the Bar and the profession! Independent intellectual counterweight in a sea of reactionaries! Inspiration to multiple generations of lawyers! Prematurely removed from the bench! Free at last to do even more good work!
BRAVO AND CONGRATULATIONS! Peoples' lawyers specializing in: * Police Misconduct * Civil Rights * Criminal & Forfeiture Defense * * Personal Injury * Complex Litigation* Proudly representing progressive activists and community organizations! Members: National Lawyers Guild and National Police Accountability Project 450 W. Fort St., Ste. 200 Detroit, MI 48226 F:\MISC\CLA Journal & Directory Ads\NLG - Tribute to Marilyn Kelly.docx
(313) 961-2255 conlitpc@sbcglobal.net NLG Detroit & Michigan • 2013 • 9
Congratulations to Marilyn An Exemplary Freedom Fighter! And a Wonderful Cousin to Boot!
Love, Jody LeWitter & Marc Van Der Hout San Francisco, Ca
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Thank you, Justice Kelly for your life-long commitment to equality and social justice. You are an inspiration to all of us.
Ken Mogill, Jon Posner, Margie Cohen & Jill Schinske Mogill, Posner & Cohen
3060 Penobscot Bldg, 645 Griswold Detroit Mi 48226 (313)962-7210
27 E Flint Street, 2nd Floor Lake Orion, Mi 48362 (248)814-7470
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20122013 THE NLG DETROIT & MICHIGAN
and a little of
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Additional thanks to: All of our attendees and advertisers for your commitment to justice and support for the National Lawyers Guild Detroit & Michigan Chapter.
IN ACTION
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Congratulations, our distinguished and honored friend, on your retirement. -Jon & Sue Pryweller and Family
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Congratulations Justice Kelly and Stand Up for Democracy! & Thank you, National Lawyers Guild for your continued work for justice
Law Offices of Chui Karega 19771 James Couzens Detroit Mi, 48235 PH: 313-864-0663
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HADDAD LAW FIRM PLC ALL THE PROTECTION YOU NEED
Legal Representation For All Your Needs • Traffic Offenses/Tickets • Criminal Defense Representation • Civil Disputes • Family Law & Child Custody/Support
Free Initial Consultation 450 W. Fort St. Suite 200 Detroit, Michigan 313-879-1100
474 N. Old Woodward Suite 250 Birmingham, Michigan 248-549-0000
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Congratulations Justice Kelly and Stand Up for Democracy! & Thank you, National Lawyers Guild for your continued work for justice
Roy L Roulhac
Administrative Law Judge 477 Michigan Avenue, Room 900 Detroit, Michigan 48226 (888) 748-7696
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~Critical Moment Collective~
Critical Moment salutes the National Lawyer’s Guild for its contribution to the struggle to emancipate humanity from capitalism. Critical Moment -- an independent Detroit press for the Detroit working class and against the capitalists for over 12 years. Support us at: www.critical-moment.org/ We want good things to print in support of the working class people of Detroit. Please send us stuff.
Our former Chief Justice Marilyn Jean Kelly is the Best and Brightest She served with compassion and dedication. She is an inspiration to all that knew her and knew of her. She will be sorely missed.
Thank you for your years of service and best wishes to you and Don on your much deserved retirement. -Coryln Forrest Retired International Vice President of UAW
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The Detroit & Michigan Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild thanks: Good Jobs Now for their continued support of our chapter
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Thank you,
Honorable Marilyn Kelly, For your dedication to justice and service to the citizens of Michigan
Mathieu & Lee Civil Litigators and Plaintiffs Attorneys Serving mid-Michigan since 1978 213 East Main Street, Midland, MI 48640 989.631.9910 www.mathieuleeattorneys.com
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Special Thanks to . . .
The 2013 Annual Dinner Committee Kathryn James Bill Goodman Jana Mathieu Tracie Boyd Marilyn Morehead Curtis McGuire
. . . and . . . “2012 & 2013 in Action” Photographers Curtis McGuire Mark Tucker Daymon J. Hartley
January 2013