On January 27, 2017, Jennifer Grieco spoke to the attendees at the training for the Oakland County Bar Association (OCBA) Pro Bono Mentor Mentee Match Program. The program was spearheaded by Jennifer during her term as President of the OCBA in 2010-2011. Since its inception, the program has received national recognition, including the National Association of Bar Executives (NABE) Lexis/Nexis...
Every so often the issue of “eavesdropping” comes up in a lawyer’s practice. Perhaps a client has recorded, or wants to record, a conversation with another party (most often a spouse, business partner or contracting party) or had their own conversation recorded by another party. Or maybe it is the lawyer who wants to record a conversation with unscrupulous opposing counsel who always seems...
The claim that a contract is unenforceable because it is unconscionable is more often than not the equivalent of a Hail Mary pass – a long shot that is rarely successful (unless you were Aaron Rodgers facing the Detroit Lions in 2015). Although the Court of Appeals recently affirmed the denial of a summary disposition motion seeking dismissal of an unconscionability claim in Glaske v....
In its recently issued opinion in Riewe v. Baron, 2015 Mich App LEXIS 1907 (October 20, 2015), the Michigan Court of Appeals dealt with some recurrent contract defenses that are frequently litigated in the Business Court. The defenses at issue were mutual mistake of fact, frustration of purpose and impossibility of performance, which, if successfully asserted, can be used to void, rescind or...
Attorneys who draft contracts regularly insert forum selection clauses into them that require the parties to litigate their disputes in certain locations. Attorneys who litigate breach of contract claims regularly turn to those clauses before filing suit to determine the proper venue in which to file their claims. But a word to the wise – if you draft or rely on a forum selection clause,...
When attorney-client and work product privilege issues are litigated, the disputes usually involve the applicability of the privilege, whether any exceptions apply or whether the privilege has been waived. This month’s blog deals with a different spin on the law of privileges, namely, do those privileges ever cease to exist? Here is how that question may arise.
There is a notion under Michigan...
The Court of Appeals recently upheld the dismissal of malpractice and fiduciary duty claims alleging that an accountant failed to “keep an eye” on the company’s controller who later engaged in a two year long embezzlement scheme, stealing over $400,000. Banker & Brisebois, Co. v Maddox, et al., unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, No. 310993 (April 29, 2014).
The...
The Michigan Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion providing that a law firm that represents itself in an action for non-payment of attorney fees is entitled to obtain case evaluation sanctions and be compensated for its own fees incurred in bringing the fee action when the former client fails to accept case evaluation pursuant to MCR 2.403(O). Fraser Trebilcock Davis & Dunlap, PC v...
