Michele Halloran, clinical professor of law and director of clinical programs at the Michigan State University College of Law, has received the State Bar of Michigan’s 2013 Champion of Justice Award.
The award will be presented on Sept. 18 at the State Bar of Michigan’s Annual Meeting in Lansing.
Nominees are evaluated based on specific criteria, including their integrity and adherence to the highest principles and traditions of the legal profession; superior professional competence; and an extraordinary professional accomplishment that benefits the nation, the state or the local community in which the lawyer or judge lives.
Halloran administers all aspects of the college’s expanding clinical programs as the director of the MSU Legal Clinic. As director of the Alvin L. Storrs Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic, she is responsible for the general operations and management of the clinic, which serves low-income clients and taxpayers for whom English is a second language.
Halloran also works closely with the College of Law’s Urban Food, Farm and Agriculture Practicum, which provides legal research, policy development and counseling to nonprofits and low-income individuals working with urban agriculture in Detroit and other urban settings.
Before joining the college in 2000, Halloran was a partner at the law firm of Howard and Howard for nine years. She served as an administrative law judge for the Michigan Tax Tribunal; a law clerk to Mary Coleman, former chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court; a prehearing attorney for the Michigan Court of Appeals; and a law clerk for the State Board of Tax Appeals.
Halloran graduated cum laude in 1979 from Thomas M. Cooley Law School and summa cum laude in 1973 from LeMoyne College.
At the most, five Champion of Justice Awards are presented to practicing lawyers and judges each year. Recipients must be State Bar of Michigan members for at least 10 years. All recipients are selected by the State Bar of Michigan’s board of commissioners.