Western Michigan University Cooley Law School Blog

2020 has been an unforgettable year so far; but a year that has placed a necessary spotlight on many areas of injustice that one graduating law student, Ray Petty, is ready to address head on. 

Martin Peters (Trimble Class, 2015), chief of staff and general counsel for Eckerd Connects in Clearwater, Florida, has a new title: Fellow. Peters was named a Bloomberg Fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and is now pursuing his master’s degree in that field. Peters is thrilled to be a part of the new and exciting program.

With the Covid-19 pandemic, and the resulting stay-home and business closure orders, face mask requirements, and related matters in the forefront of daily lives, managing safety and health care became the biggest single issue facing the United States in the spring of 2020. In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took an early pro-active approach toward trying to keep a lid on the virus. With the orders affecting many state departments and all businesses, plus the follow-through needed from those state agencies and local municipalities, it quickly became apparent that a point person was needed to coordinate all the goals the state was trying to accomplish. That someone is Sean Egan (Moore Class, 2013), deputy director of Labor in the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) since October 2019. In June 2020, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appointed Egan as the director of Covid-19 Workplace Safety.

Christian Wise Smith (Wilkins Class, 2011) has a history of beating the odds. So when he launched his campaign for Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney and was told he had little chance of success, he simply recalled his motto: significance over success. “By that measure, what I did was very significant, and ultimately, it’s going to lead to enormous success in fighting for social justice.”

When Zack Hugg entered undergraduate school at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, he planned to seek a career in the technology field. But, by his senior year, he’d discovered interests in intellectual property and privacy laws that led him to alter course and go to law school.

Logical reasoning and analytical thinking – that is what really drew WMU-Cooley graduate Gerlinde (Linda) Nattler to the law, from as far back as in high school. She reminisced about reading stories describing ancient Roman orator Cicero’s life during a Latin class. She loved how, as a lawyer, he was able to intellectually parse out arguments and fine-tune words to razor-sharp perfection.  

Exclusion of Partial DNA Specimens, Specimens from Multiple Contributors and the Lab-Created Phenomenon of Allelic Dropout by Jason S. Downs WMU-Cooley graduate Jason S. Downs is an attorney in Brevard County at Murphy’s Law Offices, P.A. His article, Exclusion of Partial DNA Specimens, Specimens from Multiple Contributors and the Lab-Created Phenomenon of Allelic Dropout, published in the Winter 2019 issue, Volume 31, No. 4, of the Florida Defender, A Publication of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Downs is a member of FACDL and the Young Lawyers Division of The Florida Bar. Before law school, he was a successful independent analyst and brief author. He was retained by many Florida criminal defense attorneys to lend his skills in formulating winning defense strategies and developing theory. He has authored hundreds of successful dispositive motions and is the author of dozens of prevailing appeals in all levels of the Florida court system and in the Supreme Court of the United States.

WMU-Cooley’s Head of Public Services at its Auburn Hills campus library, Tim Innes, recently launched a new podcast that traces the history of American law from its most ancient roots to the present day. [This article was published in the January 13, 2020 edition of the Detroit Legal News]

Haley Monaghan thought she wanted to be a lawyer, but the thought of going back to school after her undergraduate degree wasn't appealing.

Anyone who’s ever seen an episode of Law & Order knows there are the police, and then there are the defense attorneys. They rarely like each other, they have different goals, and they certainly aren’t in the same camp.