With over 25 years of practicing in all of the courts within Livingston County and many other counties across the state, I am uniquely qualified to serve as Livingston County's next Circuit Court Judge. My career has been dedicated to helping families find practical, respectful solutions as legal counsel, mediator, and arbitrator. This work requires command of a wide range of legal areas—from contract and tax law to criminal matters involving domestic violence, Personal Protection Orders, and child abuse. I am ready to transition from serving my community in front of the bench to serving as an impartial, empathetic fact-finder behind it, ensuring the timely and just administration of our courts.

Timely administration of justice is my number one priority. As a private practitioner, I’ve seen first-hand the impact and cost of cases that are pending in the court system for months or even sometimes, years. In order to improve this issue in our current circuit court, I plan to use my experience as a practitioner who has had to learn how to provide individualized attention to multiple clients while also balancing the needs of the individuals with varying interests in the cases in which I was involved.

On the bench, I will bring the same balanced, outcome-oriented approach that has defined my career in private practice. By listening carefully and applying the law, I will ensure everyone receives their day in court. My extensive experience in mediation has prepared me to resolve disputes efficiently and respectfully; I intend to bring that same decisive leadership to the bench to ensure our courts remain a strong, fair protector of our community.

I was elected to the State Bar of Michigan Family Law Council by my peers and also to the State Bar Representative Assembly for Livingston County. Each body helps shape legal policy and practice standards within my profession. The Family Law Council works to ensure family courts function efficiently and protect the rights of families and children through legislative review and legal education. The council also files briefs in important cases heard by the Michigan appellate courts and regularly provides continuous legal education through seminars and the Family Law Journal, to promote the highest standards of professionalism among family law practitioners. The Representative Assembly similarly acts to assist the legal profession as a hole.

Additionally, I contribute to my community as a member of the Brighton Downtown Development Authority and the Livingston County United Way Board, along with past roles on the Friend of the Court Advisory Board & Child Abuse Prevention Council.

I have 20 years of experience and I am the only candidate that has the vast well rounded experience that comes before Circuit Court as a trial attorney. Circuit Court not only entails criminal cases, but family, juvenile, defamation cases, civil cases, driver license restoration hearings, family, ppo's, extreme risk protection act, property, contract, zoning, and business cases. I have knowledge in each one of these, but the majority of my practice is criminal, family and constitutional law. I began my career in the Livingston County Prosecutors office as an extern. In addition, I have been a litigator for 20 years and have the knowledge of both bench and jury trials, yet motion practice as well. I have mentored several students on trial experience and have also been a judge for law schools competition. I have also been a mentor to students throughout the pst ten years.

"Placing the People First", making decisions based by Rule of Law & Constitution without politics, ensuring each person has a fair and impartial judge, and making court more affordable. This means hearing emergency motions about our children, property and liberties immediately, and providing due process to all. Too often the people in our county suffer because emergency motions are not heard soon enough. Instead of having all matters heard at the same time which causes delay and more attorney fees, each person will have an adequate time period and their matter scheduled to be heard instead of everyone's cases scheduled at the same time. Ensuring the prosecutor and defendant are heard and each person is sentenced according to the law and their individual needs (COLE factors). I also want to include non-profits to help veteran's court to improve the court to have employment included for the veterans. We have 22 veterans commit suicide a day and we need to stop this as a community.

In my practice, I have represented individuals from all walks of life all over Michigan. I zealously advocated for all of my clients. Each person will be treated fairly without prejudice or bias, much as I represented my clients. Personally, I have observed clients not treated fairly by some judges, which meant I had to fight harder for them. I believe it begins with your office staff, "if you treat your office fairly and recognize their importance", this shows you will be an effective judge. I want to ensure that people are able to afford attorney fees without having to pay their attorney to wait a lengthy time due to court scheduling with a 1PM start and the case not heard until 4:45PM (scheduling is very important). Justice is supposed to be blind to the facts, but when listening to your case, she should not be deaf to the facts of each case.

I have volunteered to judge cases for law students, been a visiting professor to teach family law for bar prep., have helped indigent clients, pro-bono services to veterans and discounts to veterans and their families along with EMS, Firefighters, and Police. I have mentored law students throughout the last 10 years, and a lot of these folks are successful attorneys or receiving a full ride to law school. I have sponsored several community events such as Torch 180, Pregnancy Help Clinic, Various Veterans fundraisers, golf outings for students or other events for students. Our office has helped McClaren hospital raise money for cancer wing, toy drive for children at Christmas, Bid on animals for 4H, and sponsored our own reading contests for children and drew names for veterans to have LYKE LAW, PLLC veteran of the year and have helped (pro bono) students attend college as to their individual First Amendment because they did not want to take the experimental COVID vaccination.