EDMIBAR, The Eastern District of Michigan Bar Association, along with the Federal Bar Association, Eastern District of Michigan Chapter presented the annual Wade Hampton McCree, Jr. Memorial Luncheon on February 19, 2025 at the Detroit Athletic Club – A good time was had by all!
Keynote Speaker:
Yuval Sharon
Gary L. Wasserman Artistic Director
Detroit Opera
2025 McCree Award Honoree:
Barbara Patek
Legal Director, Pro Se Clinic
University of Detroit Mercy School of Law
WADE HAMPTON McCREE, JR. – MEMORIAL LUNCHEON – 2025 – PROGRAM
Welcome and Introductions
Andrew J. Lievense, President
Pro Bono Work and Recognitions
Hon. F. Kay Behm, U.S. District Judge
Presentation of Wade Hampton McCree, Jr. Award
Introduction of the Award
Scott Fishwick
Chair, Hon. Wade H. McCree, Jr. Award Committee
Butzel Shareholder
Presentation of the Award
| Hon. Elizabeth A. Stafford |
Hon. Victoria A. Roberts |
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United States Magistrate Judge
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U.S. District Judge (ret.), JAMS Neutral Mediator and Arbitrator |
Award Acceptance and Remarks
Barbara Patek
Legal Director, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law
Keynote Address
Yuval Sharon
Gary L. Wasserman Artistic Director Detroit Opera
“What the Arts Can Teach us about Social Justice”
President’s Closing Remarks and Announcements
Andrew J. Lievense
WADE HAMPTON McCREE, JR.
July 3, 1920 – August 30, 1987
Wade Hampton McCree, Jr. was born in Des Moines, Iowa. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Fisk University and his law degree at Harvard Law School, where he finished twelfth in his class. He began his legal career at the Detroit firm of Bledsoe and Taylor in 1948. In 1952, he was appointed by Governor G. Mennen Williams to the Workmen’s Compensation Commission, where he served until 1954, when Governor Williams appointed him to the Wayne County Circuit Court. Judge McCree was then appointed by President John F. Kennedy to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in 1961, and by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 1966. Judge McCree resigned from the Sixth Circuit in March 1977 to accept appointment by President Jimmy Carter as Solicitor General of the United States.
Judge McCree served as Solicitor General until June 1981, when he was appointed the Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, where he taught until his death. While a member of the University of Michigan Law School faculty, Professor McCree was appointed by the United States Supreme Court to hear three cases as a Special Master.
Judge McCree cared deeply about education. A founder of the Higher Education Opportunities Committee at Wayne State University and a founding trustee of Friends School in Detroit, he was a Trustee at Fisk University and a member of the Visiting School Committees of Harvard Law School and Mercer University Law School. He also served as an Overseer of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School and on the Visiting Committees of the Law Schools at Wayne State University, the University of Chicago, Case Western Reserve University, and the University of Miami.
Judge McCree’s service to the legal profession and the community included active membership on more than 50 committees, councils and boards. He also was a Life Member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and served on the Board of the Detroit Round Table of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, as well as on the boards of numerous charitable and cultural organizations.
Barbara Patek – 2025 McCree Award Winner
Since January of 2020, Professor Barbara Patek has served as legal director of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law’s Pro Se Clinic, which serves pro se filers in the Eastern District of Michigan. This clinic serves indigent pro se litigants in the Court. As of August 2024, this clinic has served over 1,300 such individuals.
She has more than 35 years of trial and appellate experience and concentrates her litigation practice in the areas of commercial litigation, insolvency related litigation, attorney fee disputes, ERISA multi-employer fringe benefit fund litigation inside and outside of bankruptcy, ERISA insurance coverage matters, medical malpractice, product liability and Section 1983 matters. She is a past member of the executive board of the Michigan Association for Justice (MAJ) and a former chair of that organization’s Amicus Brief Committee. She is also a member of the State Bar of Michigan’s Business Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution Sections.
Under Professor Patek’s direction, students staff the clinic three afternoons a week and appear at court hearings and conferences outside. The Pro Se Clinic has been innovative, as well, partnering with Wayne State University Law School’s Disability Clinic to help litigants with Social Security and other disability-related matters, and with the Georgetown Law School’s Appellate Immersion Clinic for a successful appeal to the Sixth Circuit in a police misconduct matter.
Professor Patek provides her students with the experience to prepare them to become federal law clerks and legal practitioners, and she teaches them how to do so ethically and with civility. Her contribution to the Court, the pro se litigants, and the clinic students is immeasurable.
Yuval Sharon – Gary L. Wasserman Artistic Director – Detroit Opera
Yuval Sharon has amassed an unconventional body of work that expands the operatic form. Beyond his own productions, Sharon’s artistic guidance has transformed the Detroit Opera into a premier destination for progressive opera in the United States. Highlights from his tenure as Artistic Director include a major revival of Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X.
Sharon made his debut with the Detroit Opera in 2020 with Twilight: Gods, an innovative adaptation of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung staged in the Detroit Opera House Parking Center. Since then, he has directed a number of acclaimed productions, including Ragnar Kjartansson’s 12-hour piece Bliss, staged in the historic Michigan Building Theatre; Puccini’s La bohème, presented in reverse order in the Detroit Opera House; John Cage’s Europeras 3 & 4, in the Gem Theatre; and The Valkyries—an adaptation of Act III of Die Walküre which used green screen technology and projection screens to bring Wagner’s proto-cinematic vision to life in real time.
With L.A.-based The Industry, Sharon has directed and produced new operas in moving vehicles, operating train stations, Hollywood sound stages, and various “non-spaces.”
He is the recipient of the 2014 Götz Friedrich Prize in Germany for his production of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic. In 2017, Sharon was honored with a MacArthur Fellowship and a Foundation for Contemporary Art grant for theater. He was named Musical America’s Director of the Year in 2023. His first book, A New Philosophy of Opera, was published by Liveright in September 2024.
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN PRO BONO VOLUNTEERS LIST
We thank the below listed attorneys and their respective firms, and any other attorneys or firms inadvertently omitted, for their willingness to uphold our mission of “elevating both bench and bar” by taking on a pro bono case, or by representing the underserved through “limited scope representation,” as allowed by through LR 83.25, during 2023-24.
| Charlotte G. Carne | Dykema Gossett |
| Damien Cash | Cash Law PLLC |
| Nicholas A. Coulson | Liddle Sheets Coulson PC |
| Thomas Crammer, Caroline
Giordano & Elyse Lisznyai |
Miller Canfield |
| Ronnie E. Cromer | The Cromer Law Group, PLLC |
| Brian Farrar | Sterling Attorneys at Law, PC |
| Debra A. Fried & John Philo | Fried, Gallagher |
| Schuyler Ferguson | Miller Canfield |
| Joshua Goodrich | Lighthouse Litigation PLLC |
| Leah R. Imbrogno &
Anna Cumming |
Foley & Lardner LLP |
| William Kalas | Foley & Lardner LLP |
| Thomas Krall | Krall Law Offices PLLC |
| Frank J. Lawrence, Jr. | Law Office of Frank J. Lawrence, Jr. |
| Daniel Manville | MSU Law Clinics |
| Paul Matouka | Oliver Law Group PC |
| Jeffrey Robert May | Bodman PLC |
| Blake Christian Padge | Butzel Long |
| Essence Patterson & Raechel T.X. Conyers |
Honigman LLP |
| Solomon Radner | Radner Law Group, PLLC |
| Daniel R.W. Rustmann | Butzel Long |
| Patrick G. Seyferth | Bush, Seyferth & Paige |
| Rejanae Thurman | Carla D. Aikens, PLC |
| Flora Ujkic | The Kienbaum Law Group |
| Gabriel Veliz | Law Offices of Gabriel Veliz |
| Robin B. Wagner | Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers |
We also thank the following individuals and organizations for serving the Court through its Pro Se Prisoner Early Mediation Program in 2023-24.
| Earlene Baggett-Hayes | The Law & Mediation Center |
| Danielle Bass | Honigman |
| Jewel Haji Boelstler | Honigman |
| William Callahan | |
| Charlotte Carne | Dykema Gossett |
| Andrew Clark | Honigman |
| Dennis Clark | Clark Law Firm |
| Margaret Costello | University of Detroit Mercy School of Law |
| Thomas Cranmer | Miller Canfield Paddock and Stone |
| Michael Dauphinais | Honigman |
| Nancy Samir-Haddad Derleth | Braun Kendrick |
| Morgan Esters | Honigman |
| Josh George | Foley + Lardner |
| Joshua Goodrich | Lighthouse Litigation |
| Howard Gordon | American Arbitration Association |
| Michael Hale | Hale & Hirn |
| Dayna Harper | D.L. Harper Mediation Services |
| Melissa Hirn | Hale & Hirn |
| Richard Hurford | Richard Hurford Dispute Resolution |
| Yohana Iyob | Taft, Stettinius & Hollister |
| Kati Komorosky | Komorosky Law |
| Jasmine Martin | J. Martin Law Firm PLLC |
| Abram Miller | Kerr, Russell and Weber |
| Nicholas North | Altior Law |
| Daniel Palmer | Kitch Attorneys & Counselors |
| Brian Pappas | Pappas Dispute Resolution |
| Essence Patterson | Honigman |
| Clarence Pozza | JAMS |
| Victoria Roberts | JAMS |
| John Sier | Kitch Attorneys & Counselors |
| Leigh Taggart | Honigman |
| Lisa Timmons | Mediation Tribunal Association |
| Michael Tomko | Resolve Conflict |
| Adam Wenner | General Motors LLC |
| Betty Widgeon | Widgeon Dispute Resolution |
Please email mindy@edmibar.org to get involved and find out more about the Court’s pro bono programs.
University of Detroit Mercy Federal Pro Se Legal Assistance Clinic
We also thank and recognize the following attorneys who regularly volunteer their time to support the University of Detroit Mercy Federal Pro Se Legal Assistance Clinic:
| Kevin Carlson | Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers |
| Jocelyn Flemons | |
| Diane Kwitoski | Kwitoski & Associates, PLLC |
| Kenneth Mogill | Mogill & Lemanski, PLLC |
| Stephen Ott | Miller Canfield |
| Robert Palmer | Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers |
| Andrew Pierce | |
| Bethany Versical | Versical Law PLLC
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A NIGHT AT THE DETROIT OPERA
If you were inspired by Yuval Sharon’s talk and are interested in joining us for a night at the Detroit Opera, please use this QR code to register your interest in joining us on Friday, May 16 for the 7:30 p.m. performance of The Central Park Five. This 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner is the true story adaptation of the wrongful convictions of five African American and Latino teenagers in the assault of a white female jogger in Central Park. More information will be sent to you soon about this event.
LAWYERS, GUNS & PLEADINGS
The Civil Rights Committee welcomes back Professor Alexander A. Reinert of Cardozo Law School. Professor Reinert will discuss the recent SCOTUS case, NRA v. Vullo, a First Amendment case addressing financial regulations established against the NRA in the aftermath of the Parkland High School shooting. Join us on Thursday, February 27, from 3 pm to 5 pm at the Detroit offices of Miller Canfield. Click the QR code to learn more and register.
We gratefully acknowledge our 2024-2025 Luncheon Program Sponsors.
Special Thanks to the United States District Court and the United States Bankruptcy Court of the Eastern District of Michigan
| Altior Law | Johnson Law |
| Andrew J. McGuinness, Esq. | Jones Day |
| AsherKelly | Kerr Russell |
| Avalon | Kienbaum Hardy Viviano Pelton & Forrest |
| Ayad Law | Kitch Attorneys and Counselors |
| B. Riley Financial | Komorn Law |
| Barnes ADR | Law Offices of Robert June |
| Barris, Sott, Denn & Driker | Liss & Andrews |
| Berry Moorman | Littler |
| Bodman | Michael A. Rataj PC |
| Brooks Kushman | Michigan Poverty Law Center |
| Brooks Wilkins Sharkey & Turco | Michigan State University College of Law |
| Bush Seyferth | Mike Morse Law Firm |
| Butzel Long | Miller Canfield |
| Carla D. Aikens | The Miller Law Firm |
| Certified Service Professionals | Nacht Law |
| Clark Hill | Nyman Turkish |
| Darrow Mustafa | Ogletree Deakins |
| Deborah Gordon Law | Panagos Kennedy |
| Dickinson Wright | Paul Stablein |
| Dykema | Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, Bonanni & Rivers |
| Fagan McManus | Plunkett Cooney |
| Fink Bressack | Reiter & Walsh |
| Fisher Phillips | Rivenoak Law Group |
| Flood Law | Rosati, Schultz, Joppich & Amtsbuechler |
| Foley & Lardner | Salvatore Prescott Porter & Porter |
| Freedom Law | Sommers Schwartz |
| Garan Lucow Miller | Spectrum Computer Forensics |
| Hale & Hirn | Stout Risius Ross |
| Hickey Hauck Bishoff Jeffers & Seabolt | Tiffany & Bosco |
| Honigman | Troutman Pepper |
| Howard & Howard | US Legal Support |
| Hoyer Law Group | Varnum |
| Hubbard Snitchler & Parzianello | Warner Norcross + Judd |
| Hurwitz Law | Weitz & Luxenberg |
| JAMS | William W. Swor & Associates
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| Maurice and Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice | |
Upcoming Events
Feb 27 Professor Reinert: Lawyers, Guns and
Pleadings
Mar 10 Book Club: The Grand Bargain
Mar 11-12 New Lawyers’ Seminar
Mar 19 Open Executive Board/Committee Co-Chair
Meeting
April 2 Motion Day at U of D
Apr 17 Bankruptcy Court at Cass Tech
April 23 Leonard R. Gilman Award Luncheon
May 7 Open Executive Board/Committee Co-Chair
Meeting
June 5 Annual Dinner
Visit: https://edmibar.org/events/ for more information
Learn More about the Federal Bar Association
If you are interested in getting involved with the Federal Bar Association, which has a national focus and allows you to connect with practitioners around the country, you can learn more here. This year, members of ED MiBar are entitled to a reduced membership fee. Learn more at the QR link.
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Spread the Word for the 49th Annual
New Lawyers’ Seminar
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