State Bar of Michigan - Michigan Legal Milestones

Michigan Legal Milestones

The organization has commemorated many "Michigan Legal Milestones". Those include:

1. Ossian Sweet Trial, which was presided over by Frank Murphy and defended by Clarence Darrow.
2. Baseball's Reserve Clause
3. Thomas M. Cooley Law Office
4. Theodore Roosevelt-Newett Libel Trial at the Marquette County, Michigan Courthouse. Roosevelt won the verdict, but was awarded a dime.
5. Justice William A. Fletcher - the first chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
6. Sojourner Truth, African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist
7. Augustus Woodward - first chief justice of the Michigan territorial court.
8. Public Access to Public Water
9. Ten Hours or No Sawdust - Michigan's largest labor strike of the 19th century.
10. 1961-62 Michigan Constitutional Convention
11. Eva Belles' Vote - an early victory for women's suffrage won in Flint, Michigan.
12. One Person, One Vote
13. Improving Justice - the idea for the American Judicature Society created in Manistee, Michigan.
14. The King's Grant - a celebrated cases of the 19th century involving a dispute over land granted by French King Louis XV in 1750.
15. The Uninvited Ear - Judge Damon Keith's decision in a 1971 case upheld the right of Americans to be free from unreasonable government intrusion.
16. Laughing Whitefish - an 1889 decision by the Michigan Supreme Court recognizing the legal validity of Native American tribal laws and customs.
17. Protecting the Impaired - a Michigan Supreme Court decision overturing as unconstitutional an act of the Michigan legislature providing for forced sterilization of the mentally impaired. Compare Buck vs. Bell.
18. Rose of Aberlone - the classic contracts case involving Hiram Walker & Sons, Rose the cow, and the principle of rescission based on mutual mistake.
19. Emelia Schaub - Michigan's first woman elected prosecutor, the first woman in the United States to successfully defend a murder trial, and a protector of "the rights and tribal existence of native Americans in northwest Michigan."
20. 1948 decision in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. - Supreme Court Associate Justice Frank Murphy important decision interpreting the Fair Labor Standards Act.
21. Pond's Defense - Michigan Supreme Court Justice James Campbell authored an important decision about self-defense and defense of others in 1860 in Pond v. People.
22. Ending Jim Crow - Keith's Theatre in Grand Rapids discriminated against patrons based on their race, but that practice was found to violate Michigan's Constitution by the Michigan Supreme Court.
23. Conveying Michigan
24. Frank Murphy's Dissent in Korematsu vs. United States.
25. Striking Racial Covenants - the United States Supreme Court rejected racial restrictive covenants in deeds that would have prevented Orsel and Minnie McGhee and their family from living where they chose in Detroit.
26. Milo Radulovich and the Fall of McCarthyism - in 1953, two Michigan attorneys, the Hon. Kenneth N. Sanborn and Charles C. Lockwood assisted Milo Radulovich, a resident of Dexter, Michigan, in his fight against the United States Air Force.
27. Committee of One - Judge Henry Hart of Midland, led a "one-man campaign" for the uniform placement of yellow "No Passing Zone" signs on the left side of Michigan Roads.
28. Pioneer, Advocate, Woman — Mary Coleman, first female Michigan Supreme Court Justice and Chief Justice, who made a lasting impact on Michigan’s judicial system.
29. President Gerald R. Ford - 38th President of the United States was a Michigan lawyer practicing in Grand Rapids.
30. Freedom Road - In Dowagiac, Michigan residents of Cass County rallied to protect runaway slaves in the Kentucky Raid of 1847.
31. Otis Milton Smith (1922-1994) was an outstanding leader, lawyer, and dedicated public servant who overcame poverty and prejudice. He served as chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission, justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, regent of the University of Michigan, and a vice president and general counsel of the General Motors Corporation.
32. Prentiss Marsh Brown, a St. Ignace lawyer, is best remembered as the "father of the Mackinac Bridge." He was appointed chair of the Mackinac Bridge Authority.