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

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."

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 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 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 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.