Jennifer is a Senior Associate with the firm. She has experience handling complex commercial litigation, business law, real estate transactions, and estate planning/probate matters. Jennifer also has experience with providing general counsel services and advice to various Metro-Detroit area businesses, assisting with corporate entity organization and governance, financing matters, acquisitions/sales, licensing, and day-to-day administrative matters. Her experience specifically includes analysis, negotiation, preparation, and litigation of contracts and transactional documents, litigation of fraud/misrepresentation matters, due diligence review, investment/loan analysis and documentation, and liquor license transactions.

Jennifer’s experience also includes providing legal services and business advice to public pension systems as special counsel relating to various areas of law, including, but not limited to: complex commercial litigation, and Freedom of Information Act and Open Meetings Act matters.

Jennifer is an Oakland County Bar Foundation Fellow, a professional distinction limited to less than 5% of the total active membership of the State Bar of Michigan who practice in Oakland County. Jennifer was also recently elected to the State Bar of Michigan Representative Assembly for Circuit 3 (Wayne County) for a term which expires September 30, 2021. She is also a member of the Business Law, Litigation, and Real Estate Property Law Sections of the State Bar of Michigan, and President of the Incorporated Society of Irish American Lawyers (ISIAL) – the first President to serve three terms.  Jennifer is also a past Associate Member of the Michigan Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems (MAPERS).

Jennifer is active in the Michigan State University Alumni Association and MSU Alumni of Metro Detroit (Detroit Spartans), and has volunteered as a Moot Court Judge for the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. Focus: Hope and Mariners Inn volunteer is also on the list of her professional activities. While studying at UDM Law Jennifer was an active member of the Women’s Law Caucus, Incorporated Society of Irish American Lawyers, and the Environmental Law Society.

Before joining Foley, Baron, Metzger & Juip, PLLC, Jennifer worked at a small Detroit firm specializing in public pension system representation, business and real estate law.

During law school, Jennifer worked as a law clerk for a small Troy, Michigan firm which focused its practice on civil litigation, insurance defense, contract, tort, family, and construction law matters. During a summer in law school, she was a judicial intern for Oakland County Circuit Court, Family/Probate Division Judge Linda S. Hallmark.

NOTABLE CASES

Wayne County Employees’ Retirement System and Retirement Commission v Wayne County and Wayne County Commission, Wayne County Circuit Court Case #10-013013-AW; 301 Mich. App. 1, 836 N.W.2d 279 (2013); and 497 Mich. 36, 859 N.W.2d 678 (2014):
Second chair to the Special Counsel team that represented the Wayne County Employees’ Retirement System (WCERS) and obtained a $49 million judgment against Wayne County for violations of the exclusive benefit and prohibited transaction rules of the Public Employee Retirement System Investment Act (“PERSIA”) in the Wayne County Circuit Court on remand from the Michigan Supreme Court, which affirmed, in substantial part, the Michigan Court of Appeals decision invalidating portions of a 2010 ordinance which permitted the County to usurp approximately $32 Million of WCERS’ trust funds to offset the County’s annual required contribution.

The Police & Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit v Paramount Limited, LLC, et al, Wayne County Circuit Court Case #11-006035-CR:
Second chair to the Special Counsel team that represented DPF – successfully litigated a ponzi scheme case in Wayne County Circuit Court and other jurisdictions involving breach of a loan agreement, and a court appointed receiver; ultimately obtained several judgments against defendants, a majority of each in excess of $16 Million.

Peter Rhoades v General Retirement System of the City of Detroit (“DGRS”), Wayne County Circuit Court Case # 11-002962-CD:
Second chair to the Special Counsel team that represented DGRS – The Michigan Court of Appeals (in an unpublished opinion, dated June 17, 2014) affirmed the Wayne County Circuit Court’s decision granting summary disposition in favor of DGRS, denying Rhoades’ claims to retirement benefits by way of application of the City of Detroit General Retirement Ordinance Amendment which prohibited double-dipping on pension benefits upon Rhoades’ re-employment with the City.