Angels  The "Dean's List"  Attorney-Artists  Other Supporters

Contributors to the WLAM Foundation are Special People. We applaud the commitment to women's education demonstrated by each one of them.

Foundation Angels

Our Angels each made large contributions in honor of particular cases which involved women's issues.

 

Carole Chiamp

Detroit attorney Carole Chiamp was the first to respond to the Foundation's Angel program with a donation commemorating a decision of great impact issued by the Michigan Court of Appeals. The case is Hanaway v Hanaway, 208 Mich App 278 (1995), where the Court deemed a marriage a partnership which must account for a homemaker's contributions. Overruling the trial court, the appellate panel said that the plaintiff-wife in fact made a contribution to the assets and appreciation of a company owned and operated by her husband:

 

The parties were building an asset as well as enjoying its fruits on an ongoing basis. That plaintiff's contribution to the asset came in the form of household and family services is irrelevant. The marriage was a partnership. The couple nurtured a business and three children, and watched all four grow. Defendant does not claim that he could have done it all himself. 208 Mich App at 294.

 

The appellate panel, consisting of Judges Helene White, Janet Neff and Michael Stacey, remanded for reassessment of marital assets, adding that plaintiff should receive attorney fees as she "should not have been required to invade principal to pay these fees, given defendant's considerable property and earnings." Saying that the judges "deserve all the credit," Chiamp made her recent contribution in their honor.

 

Asked why she chose to celebrate this important decision with a donation to the WLAM Foundation, Ms. Chiamp admitted, "the case makes me smile every time I think about the decision."

 

Kimberly Cahill

The second "Angel" contribution, by the Center Line firm of Schoenherr & Cahill, also commemorates a Michigan Court of Appeals decision, Yarash v Yarash (unpublished # 198730, October 21, 1997). In this case, the defendant-husband was seeking a reduction in alimony due to his retirement. The original alimony provision mandated that plaintiff's obligation to defendant shall be reduced when defendant receives both pension benefits and her social security benefits. This issue of whether the defendant should be forced to take her social security benefits early and at a reduced rate was resolved by the Court of Appeals when it held:

 

Defendant should not be compelled to take her social security benefits early at a reduced rate so that plaintiff no longer has to pay alimony.

 

The appellate panel consisted of Judges Maura Corrigan, Richard Allen Griffin and Joel Hoekstra.

 

Kim Cahill, of Schoenherr & Cahill, wishes to acknowledge the University of Michigan's Women in the Law Clinic for its assistance in the preparation of the appeal in this case. "After three evidentiary hearings, an initial denial from the Court of Appeals and a remand from the Supreme Court, this victory was particularly sweet," said Ms. Cahill.

The "Dean's List"

The Women Lawyers Association of Michigan Foundation thanks the following generous contributors, the members of the year-2007 Dean’s List:

Gold Key ($19,000)
Ford Motor Company Fund

Gold Key ($15,000)
General Motors Foundation

Magna Cum Laude ($1,000 to $2,500)
Barris, Sott, Denn & Driker, PLLC
Bodman, LLP
Carole Chiamp
Dickinson Wright Women’s Network
Dow Chemical Company
Dykema Gossett, PLLC
Eisenberg & Bogas, PC
Ford Motor Company
Hickey, Cianciolo & Fishman, PC
Kelly Law Registry
Albert & Doris Pitt Foundation
Schoenherr, Cahill and Warnez, PC
Women’s Bar Association of Oakland County

Cum Laude ($750 to $999)
Talarico & Associates, PC

Good Citizenship ($125 to $749)
Adkinson Need & Allen
Kathleen M. Allen
Katherine Barnhart
Hon. Joseph Costello
Margaret Costello
Thomas Cranmer
Suzanne Dreifus
Sandra Sorini Elser
Ann E. Erickson-Gault
Julie I. Fershtman
Sally Claire Fink
Forrest & Smith, PC
Hon. Carol Hackett Garagiola
Hon. William Giovan
Nancy A. Glen
Hon. Pamela Harwood
Jan C. Leventer
LexisNexis
Donna Mallonee
Masco Corporation Foundation
Valerie Newman
Alice McCann Osburn
Margaret Raben
Meghan Kennedy Riordan
Ann L. Routt
Secura Insurance Company
Sinas, Dramis, Brake Boughton & McIntyre, PC
Sommers Schwartz, PC
Marianne Talon
Maureen E. Thomas
Dawn Van Hoek
Lorraine Weber
Hon. Robert Ziolkowski

Join the 2007 Dean's List

View the 2006 Dean's List
View the 2005 Dean's List
View the 2004 Dean's List
View the 2003 Dean's List
View the 2002 Dean's List
View the 2001 Dean's List
View the 2000 Dean's List
View the 1999 Dean's List

Attorney-Artists

Four Michigan Attorneys generously donated the reproduction rights to their art work, available as the Foundation's gift in exchange for contributions exceeding $100. Each of these talented attorneys provided not only the fruit of their artistic labor, but valuable production assistance and fundraising suggestions. Our featured Attorney-Artists are:

Sharon Blackmon Sharon Blackmon has been an appellate attorney with the City of Detroit's Law Department for the past seven years. In the early 1980s, she practiced law for four years with Selma Regional Legal Services in Selma, Alabama. There, she was extensively involved in a project to record the oral histories of Alabama's black "granny" midwives. Margaret Charles Smith and Linda Janet Holmes, Ohio State University Press (1995) feature her photographs in the book, Listen to Me Good, The Life Story of an Alabama Midwife. In addition, her work has been published in the University of Alabama at Birmingham's alumni publication. She is a graduate of Wayne State University and New York University School of Law, and she was a featured artist in the WLAM Foundation's 1998 Art Exhibition.

Ruthmarie Shea Ruthmarie Shea is a past Program Chairperson for the South Oakland Art Association. She does work in clay, acrylic, mixed media and assemblage. She has studied at the Birmingham-Bloomfield Art Association, and exhibited at the Dell Pryor Gallery in Harmonie Park. She is currently studying ceramics and glazing at Pewabic Pottery in Detroit. Shea is an attorney practicing in Oakland County. She is a past president of the Women's Bar Association-Oakland County Region Women Lawyers Association of Michigan, and three-term member of the Board of Directors of the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan. Shea is a graduate of the University of Detroit Law School.

Brian Zubel Brian Zubel is a 1984 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. He served for ten years as an assistant prosecutor in Oakland County before accepting his current position as the training coordinator for the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council. In 1994, he was commissioned by the Parents of Murdered Children to paint a work symbolic of their struggle. Sales of lithographs of the painting raised over $10,000 for their national organization. Specializing in portraiture and figurative pieces, he had a show at the Edge Gallery in Pontiac, in 1995, and participated in the 1998 WLAM Foundation Art Exhibition, as a featured artist. He lives with his barn cats, Priscilla and Ray, in northern Oakland County.

Lori Zurvalec Lori A. Zurvalec completed one semester of fine arts study in painting at the Art School of the Society of Arts and Crafts (now the Center for Creative Studies) before transferring to a liberal arts degree program. She obtained a Bachelor of General Studies degree from the University of Michigan in 1976, and a Juris doctor degree from Wayne State University School of Law in 1979. She practiced in the areas of labor law, and served as a gubernatorial appointee to the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board. In 1989 she devoted herself full-time to the raising of two sons, and resumed painting. She has exhibited her works in national, state and local exhibitions, as well as the 1998 WLAM Foundation Art Exhibition. Ms. Zurvalec's beautiful watercolors have led to much recognition and numerous awards. She is a long-standing member of the Woman Lawyers Association of Michigan, and has designed WLAM notecards and announcements, which have been used for fundraising.

Other Supporters

Many individual contributions are received annually, from dues check-offs, memorials, and attendance of special events. The Foundation thanks each of these generous donors.