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Municipal judge urges area young professionals to channel passions to service
BENJAMIN WHITE
Associate Editor
Published: October 5, 2012
Members of the Greater Akron Chamber of Commerce’s Young Professionals Network (YPN) turned out last Thursday to hear Judge Kathryn Michael reflect on the days of owning her own business where she worked to sell her sole product: legal expertise.
The group gathered at 427 Design, an Akron-based design firm located in the former Acme bread factory on North Union Street. Urging her audience to apply their passions when serving their community, Judge Michael talked about her career in the legal profession.
When she first started in the law business, Judge Michael said she took whatever types of cases she could, sharing an office and a secretary with other solo practitioners. She said those years, and her subsequent experience on the municipal court bench, allowed her the unique opportunity to see small business as an owner, counsel and judge. She said that belonging to groups like the YPN offer business owners a way to promote their services.
“I was a part of a lot of networking groups when I was a lawyer trying to generate business,” she said. “There weren’t as many of these types of forums as there are now, so I’m grateful to be talking to you, and I want to let all of you know how fortunate you are to have a group like this.”
While Judge Michael spoke on law as a business, she also shared the more personal side to her story.
Judge Michael’s parents emigrated from the Middle East with little more than eighth grade educations, she said. Adherents to Orthodox Christianity and mores from the other side of the globe, Judge Michael’s family did not encourage professional ambitions beyond teaching or secretarial service. Unlike her siblings, she shunned her traditional gender role and graduated from The University of Akron School of Law in 1986.
“I was an alien to my parents,” she said.
Her early years in solo practice proved no easier. In the days of strict dress codes for female attorneys, several colleagues refusing to call the single attorney anything but “missus.” She also vividly recalled a judge embarrassing her in front of his court for not wearing her suit jacket.
“I’m trying to get my guy out of jail!” she said. “My jacket’s not important.”
Though she worked a wide range of cases as a solo practitioner, Judge Michael gained experience and perspective while representing her share of small businesses.
When asked the most important piece of practical advice she could give young businesspeople, Judge Michael never hesitated: write everything down.
“When a person who is running a small business comes to a lawyer, it’s never for a happy thing,” she said. “It’s always for something that they should have done initially. Document, document, document.”
She recounted a story of a local lighting company that had fired an elderly and inept installation specialist. The man would install fixtures upside down, she said, yet they never wrote him up or offered counsel. Inexplicably, the company had given him a bonus and even complimentary Christmas cards. When the company finally fired him, the man sued for age discrimination.
“They were being so nice all along, that they didn’t get the message across and never documented it, and we found ourselves in front of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission,” she said.
“You can’t stop everybody from suing, but you can stop what the impact will be in the end.”
Judge Michael eventually worked as a mediator and part-time magistrate, and she was elected to the Akron Municipal Court in November 2005.
She said her biggest challenge remains the political game and necessities of the position, but she credited her experience as a hustling solo practitioner for teaching her to market herself. If a person sees an SUV driving around Akron covered in her campaign signs, it is probably hers.
She cited as her biggest achievement the way she interacts with people who appear in her court.
“All too often, judges will just rule from the bench and not explain their decision,” she said. “I always try to explain it to people because I think it’s important to understand why I came to my decision.”
Judge Michael attends St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church, where she makes a point of encouraging young girls, many of whom grow up in a familiar restrictive environment, to follow their dreams in spite of the messages they may receive from their families.
“I tell my daughter, ‘whatever God puts in your heart to do, don’t let anyone stop you,’” she said.
One of the highest compliments she said she has received came in Arabic from one of the church’s elders: “You lift up our heads.”
She encouraged the young businesspeople in the room to lift the heads of those in their communities by using the skills for which they harbor a true passion – a running theme of the night.
“All of you know what you are good at,” she told the quiet group. “Use that talent and donate that talent to a nonprofit board, and you will meet amazing people.”
The Akron Chamber’s YPN, relaunched last year, offers a place for 20- to 40- year-old professionals to network and develop new skills. On Wednesday, it helped host a breakfast with Jim Tressel at Tangier Restaurant & Cabaret. On Oct. 25, it will provide members a chance to meet Danielle Kimmell CPA, the youngest partner at Bober Markey Fedorovich, an area accounting firm.
427 Design hosted the event and several of its employees attended, including vice president Justin Tokos.
Judge Michael is currently campaigning against Judge Tammy O’Brien for a spot on the Summit County Court of Common Pleas for a term expiring on Jan. 1, 2015.