Working Towards Nine

Domestic violence is common in every community and affects all people. According to National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, more than 10 million adults in the United States experience domestic violence annually. One in four women and one in nine men experience sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime. Attorney Jennifier (Jen) C. Smith, joins us to discuss these statistics, the cycle of violence, how to best support a survivor of domestic violence, and the role of education in prevention. 

Attorney Jennifier (Jen) C. Smith, is a graduate of the University of Detroit Mercy. She began her law practice as a legal aid attorney working exclusively with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. During her time at legal aid, Jen obtained certification for the Dr. Jacquelyn C. Campbell Danger Assessment and assisted many survivors of domestic violence on their path to achieving independence and freedom. Jen is the former Treasurer for The Butterfly Collective, a nonprofit in Macomb County that’s mission is to bring awareness about the Domestic Violence epidemic in our world and to financially assist survivors of Domestic Violence as they begin to build a life on their own. Jen is also a board member for the WLAM -Macomb region.

Tanya A. Grillo (Grillo Law, PLLC) is a criminal defense attorney based in Macomb County, MI.  Ms. Grillo is the current Vice President of the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan, a Director at Large for the Women's Lawyers Association of Michigan, and a Past President - Women's Lawyers Association of Michigan; Macomb Region. From 2017-2018, she was the Regional Manager for the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission (MIDC) for Lapeer, Oakland, Macomb, and St. Clair counties and worked to reform the indigent defense system. Upon returning to private practice in 2019, Ms. Grillo has her work in indigent defense and was awarded the contract to manage the indigent defense systems for two metro-Detroit cities.  She is passionate about giving back to her community and profession and sits as the Chair of the Criminal Law Committee for the Macomb County Bar Association and an advocate for Friend of Foster Kids. Ms. Grillo received a Juris Doctorate from Thomas M. Cooley Law School and a bachelor's degree from the University of Central Florida.

Resources discussed during the podcast:

Domestic Violence Hotline – 800-799-7233

National Domestic Hotline chat - 24/7 hotline via text START to 88788

Michigan Coalition to End Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault – www.mcedsv.org

Shelters in the tri-county area:

·      Turning Point – Macomb County

·      Haven – Oakland County

·      First Step – Wayne County

·      Safe House Center – Washtenaw County

·      Blue Water – St. Clair County

·      Ava’s Place – Huron County

More resources available at www.michiganlegalhelp.org.

Learn more about WLAM on our ⁠⁠website⁠⁠ and on our social media platforms ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠LinkedIn⁠, ⁠YouTube⁠, and ⁠Twitter⁠.  

WLAM supporters can sponsor the Working Towards Nine Podcast. Sponsorship includes a 30-second promo, either audio created by the sponsor or ad copy read by the producer and the sponsor’s name cited in the show notes. Check out our website ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ to learn more and purchase a sponsorship.  

WLAM wants the WTN Podcast to be accessible to all who listen. If you would like a free transcript of an episode, please email ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠. 

Ruby Robinson, the Managing Attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC), joins us to discuss the organization he has been a part of for the last decade. MIRC is a legal resource center for Michigan’s immigrants and advocates through education and training about immigration law and the complex relationship between immigration status and immigrants’ rights in areas including access to public benefits, family law and child welfare, civil rights, and worker’s rights.

Ruby is a managing attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. He focuses primarily on humanitarian relief for victims of domestic violence/crime and naturalization matters. He knows the immigration consequences for criminal behavior, specifically Michigan offenses. Ruby graduated from Wayne State University Law School and the University of Michigan. Before joining MIRC, he worked for Lakeshore Legal Aid. During law school, Ruby was a student attorney with the school’s Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic. Before law school, Ruby served as an AmeriCorps*VISTA in Brooklyn, NY.

Abril Valdes Siewert has dedicated her career to helping vulnerable communities. She is the owner and principal attorney of Valdes Law, PLLC. Most recently, Ms. Siewert worked under immigration guru Robert Birach as a Senior Associate Attorney. She served as the Immigrant Rights Attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, where she co-authored the Michigan Crimmigration resource guide. She was also a Staff Attorney for Honigman’s immigration group and has worked for Lakeshore Legal Aid’s Center for Advocacy Law Line, guiding in pro per clients through claims in various district courts. Ms. Siewert is licensed in the state of Michigan and California. Ms. Siewert received her J.D. from the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and her B.A. in English from California State University Los Angeles. She is a Governor appointed Commissioner for the Hispanic/Latino Commission of Michigan, Vice-Chair for the State Bar of Michigan’s Immigration Law Section, co-chair of the Diversity & Inclusion committee for the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan, and Board of Director for the Hispanic Bar Association.

Learn more about WLAM on our ⁠website⁠ and social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter.  

WLAM allows its supporters to sponsor the Working Towards Nine Podcast. Sponsorship includes a 30-second promo, either audio created by the sponsor or ad copy read by the producer and the sponsor’s name cited in the show notes. Check out our website ⁠here⁠ to learn more and purchase a sponsorship.  

WLAM wants the WTN Podcast to be accessible to all who listen. If you would like a free transcript of an episode, please email ⁠[email protected]⁠. 

In this episode, Elizabeth Jolliffe talks with Nicole Smithson about mentors, sponsors, and coaches, how to develop these relationships, and what they can do for your career.

Elizabeth Jolliffe is a career coach for lawyers. She helps lawyers nationwide get more of what they want in their practice and career. Elizabeth loves coaching, using her experience as a large firm partner, litigator, and bar leader to help motivated lawyers of all types reach their definition of success. In addition to her coaching practice, she has informally mentored and sponsored hundreds of women lawyers and seen many go on to become mentors and sponsors in their careers. She started her coaching practice in May 2008 after being a partner and a commercial litigator for 19 years at Clark Hill in Detroit. She is a past president of the Washtenaw County Bar Association and the Detroit Bar Association. She is also a past president of the Wayne Region of the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan and the Detroit Association of University of Michigan Women. A double Wolverine, Elizabeth earned her BA and JD from the University of Michigan and her coaching certification from the Coaches Training Institute. She lives in Ann Arbor within walking distance to campus, Main Street, and Michigan Stadium. From a family of teachers and lawyers, she enjoys being an aunt to 11 nieces and nephews.

www.yourbenchmarkcoach.com

www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethjolliffe

[email protected]

Nicole Smithson became the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission’s regional manager for the Lapeer, Macomb, Oakland, and St. Clair Region in January 2019. Before joining the MIDC, Nicole was an attorney with a law firm specializing in representing credit unions, working in its bankruptcy, creditor’s rights, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, and real estate departments. She has experience as a sole practitioner representing individuals in criminal, juvenile, domestic relations, and probate matters. She previously consulted for the JUSTICIA Foundation for Development and Human Rights in Lebanon on projects for the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program. She also served as a staff attorney/magistrate at the Butler County Common Pleas Court in Ohio and a judicial law clerk at the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two. Nicole is currently president-elect of the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan, creative director of Working Towards Nine, editor-in-chief of the WLAM Journal, and on the editorial board of the Women Lawyers Journal, the journal for the National Association of Women Lawyers. She was selected as one of Michigan Lawyers Weekly’s “Influential Women of Law” for 2022. Nicole graduated from Wayne State University Law School and the University of Detroit Mercy.

Learn more about WLAM on our ⁠website⁠ and our social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter. 

WLAM allows its supporters to sponsor the Working Towards Nine Podcast. Sponsorship includes a 30-second promo, either audio created by the sponsor or ad copy read by the producer and the sponsor’s name cited in the show notes. Check out our website here to learn more and purchase a sponsorship.

WLAM wants the WTN Podcast to be accessible to all who listen. If you would like a free transcript of an episode, please email ⁠[email protected]⁠.

The fourth episode of the Working Towards Nine podcast is a conversation between ACLU Michigan Legal Director Dan Korobkin and attorney Abril Valdes Siewart. Listen to Korokbkin provide an update on the most recent litigation, constitutional amendments, policy, and the current legal priorities of the ACLU Michigan.

Dan Korobkin became legal director of the ACLU of Michigan in 2019. He has been an ACLU of Michigan attorney since 2008 and served as deputy legal director for five years. His civil rights advocacy and leadership span various issues, from criminal law reform to LGBTQ rights to freedom of speech and religion.

Dan has led the ACLU’s fight to end Michigan’s shameful practice of sentencing children to life in prison without the possibility of parole, having litigated the pathbreaking Hill v. Snyder class action lawsuit from 2010 until a settlement was reached in 2020. In 2019, he helped spearhead the ACLU of Michigan’s bail reform lawsuit in Detroit, a class action challenging the bail practices in the 36th District Court. In 2021, he argued and won Johnson v. Vanderkooi, a case in the Michigan Supreme Court establishing a Fourth Amendment right not to be stopped and fingerprinted by the police on the side of the road.
In addition to his work on criminal law reform, Dan has been recognized as a pioneer in protecting the rights of medical marijuana patients, having argued and won Ter Beek v. City of Wyoming in the Michigan Supreme Court in 2014. He also represents a class of schoolchildren seeking special education services in the wake of the Flint Water Crisis, and he was on the legal team representing Aimee Stephens, a transgender woman whose employment discrimination case led to a historic victory in the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020. In 2021, Dan was recognized as Lawyer of the Year by Michigan Lawyers Weekly.

Korobkin has a law degree from Yale Law School and a bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College. Before working at the ACLU, Korobkin served as a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson in Montgomery, Alabama, and to Judge Robert D. Sack on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He grew up in Ann Arbor.

Abril Valdes Siewert has dedicated her career to helping vulnerable communities. She is the owner and principal attorney of Valdes Law, PLLC. Most recently, Ms. Siewert worked under immigration guru Robert Birach as a Senior Associate Attorney. She served as the Immigrant Rights Attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, where she co-authored the Michigan Crimmigration resource guide. She was also a Staff Attorney for Honigman’s immigration group and has worked for Lakeshore Legal Aid’s Center for Advocacy Law Line, guiding in pro per clients through claims in various district courts. Ms. Siewert is licensed in the state of Michigan and California.

Ms. Siewert received her J.D. from the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and her B.A. in English from California State University Los Angeles. She is a Governor appointed Commissioner for the Hispanic/Latino Commission of Michigan, Vice-Chair for the State Bar of Michigan’s Immigration Law Section, co-chair of the Diversity & Inclusion committee for the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan, and Board of Director for the Hispanic Bar Association.

Learn more about WLAM on our website and our social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter. 

WLAM allows its supporters to sponsor the Working Towards Nine Podcast. Sponsorship includes a 30-second promo, either audio created by the sponsor or ad copy read by the producer and the sponsor’s name cited in the show notes.

WLAM wants the WTN Podcast to be accessible to all who listen. If you would like a free transcript of an episode, please email ⁠[email protected]⁠.

The third episode of the Working Towards Nine podcast covers branding as a woman lawyer with criminal defense attorneys Syndey Rushing and Tanya Grillo. These independent trial attorneys discuss the importance of creating your brand in the legal profession.

WLAM wants the WTN Podcast to be accessible to all who listen. If you would like a free transcript of today’s episode, please email [email protected].

In honor of Women's History Month, WLAM hosted a panel discussion with former Michigan Supreme Court Justices Hon. Marilyn J. Kelly and Hon. Maura D. Corrigan. This is a recording of that virtual event. Sit back and listen as Historical Preservation Committee member Carolyn Sullivan interviews the Justices about their journey from law school to the bench.

WLAM wants the WTN Podcast to be accessible to all who listen. If you would like a free transcript of today’s episode, please email [email protected].

Join WLAM as we hear from Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement about the future of the Michigan Supreme Court. She discusses her plans for the Court, recent decisions, and the Court's impact on Michiganders with the Working Towards Nine Executive Director Kirsten Silwanowicz.