When Reda Taleb (McLean Class, 2015) talks about “giving back,” she isn’t just reciting a slogan — she’s living by example. The daughter of immigrants from Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, Taleb’s parents, along with her six older siblings, laid roots in Dearborn’s south end, an area known for its pollution-emitting factory smoke stacks and community of Arab Americans seeking the “American Dream.”
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The first thing Kristina Williams learned in college was that nursing wasn’t the career for her. The second thing she realized was that she didn’t really have another path pointing her in the right direction.
Michigan Resident Lawyer Employment Data Series – Part 4 by Don LeDuc, Professor of Law, Cooley Law School Annually, the State Bar of Michigan collects detailed data regarding its membership, focusing on active Michigan resident lawyers–a focus followed in the seven-part analysis in this series. The data is supplied by and used with the permission of the State Bar. My thanks to Kristen Sewell, the current Research and Analytics Director at the State Bar of Michigan and Anne Vrooman, recently retired from that position, for their work in gathering and providing this information. The data provides an opportunity to examine objectively both the changes from year-to-year and the implications of those changes.
Kara Rosengren was born and raised in Michigan and spent most of her formative years in the small village of Holly. It was also where she fell in love with dance. She vividly recalls her very first dance class at six years old; she knew then and there that she was born to be a dancer. Her passion for dance followed her to Western Michigan University where she got her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance and then pursued what many would say was an illustrious dance career.
Joe Kimble was working as a staff analyst for the Michigan Supreme Court in the mid-1970s when he was faced with an assignment that he wasn’t quite sure how to tackle: revising Michigan court rules. He had majored in literature at Amherst College before going to law school at the University of Michigan and even earned a few student writing awards along the way, but legal writing was something he’d yet to master. So before putting pen to paper, he decided to educate himself. He went to the law library and checked out The Fundamentals of Legal Drafting by Reed Dickerson, which at the time appeared to be the one and only book on the subject. “It never quite hit me in law school, even with that kind of background, that there’s something wrong with the way lawyers write,” he said. “As many law students do, I just took it as a given that this is the way it is, and this is the way it has to be.” Dickerson showed Kimble the light. He still remembers a particularly eye-opening part of the book, laid out in two easy-to-read columns. One listed common legal and formal terms, and the other listed simpler equivalents, sometimes even just a single word. Instead of prior to, one could simply write before. Pursuant to could become under. In the event that could be shortened all the way to if. It just made sense. Why would anyone want to write in a way that wasn’t the clearest, most straightforward way possible? “It was a revelation,” Kimble said. After all that time in law school and as a lawyer becoming well-versed in the confusing and clunky world of legalese, he found it to be like discovering a secret lying in plain sight. Everyone, and particularly lawyers, should be writing in a plain — or much plainer — way. And yet, they weren’t — at least not yet. Kimble has committed his legal career to improving the clarity of legal documents. He has served on state and national committees; was a founding director of the Center for Plain Language and a president of Clarity, an international organization promoting plain legal language; was a style (drafting) consultant on the projects to completely redraft the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Bankruptcy Procedure, and Evidence; is a prolific author of articles and books; and has taught thousands of students the art of plain language. Now a distinguished professor emeritus, Kimble taught legal writing for 30 years at Cooley Law School and the school’s Center for Legal Drafting bears his name. In 2023, he won the State Bar of Michigan’s highest honor, the Roberts P. Hudson Award, for his career achievements. This year marks yet another milestone: The Michigan Bar Journal’s Plain Language column — for which he has served as editor, inspiration, and frequent author since 1988 — is celebrating its 40th year. (See more about that in this month’s column.) “It’s a labor of love,” he said.
Michigan Resident Lawyer Employment Data Series – Part 3 by Don LeDuc, Professor of Law, Cooley Law School Annually, the State Bar of Michigan collects detailed data regarding its membership, focusing on active Michigan resident lawyers–a focus followed in the seven-part analysis in this series. The data is supplied by and used with the permission of the State Bar. My thanks to Kristen Sewell, the current Research and Analytics Director at the State Bar of Michigan and Anne Vrooman, recently retired from that position, for their work in gathering and providing this information. The data provides an opportunity to examine objectively both the changes from year-to-year and the implications of those changes.
The first recorded etiquette rules are traced to 2400 B.C., and many are still important today in the practice of law. So it goes without question that law students should learn, hone, and abide by basic etiquette guidelines. To narrow down the long list of rules, here are four main categories to prioritize: Greetings, being Ahead of Schedule, Meetings, and Emails. In other words, be on your GAME!
Cooley Dean’s Fellow Colby Weron has been thinking about law school ever since he was a freshman in high school. He was debating between going into law enforcement, like his mother, or becoming the first attorney in his family. Seeing his mother’s struggles with his father as a young boy tipped the scales on the side of a legal career.
Michigan Resident Lawyer Employment Data Series – Part 2 by Don LeDuc, Professor of Law, Cooley Law School
Once Cooley Dean’s Fellow Francesca Camacho participated in her high school’s mock trial team, she realized the law was calling her.
