By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
Stephen P. Dunn was studying overseas at University College Cork in Ireland when the 9/11 terror attacks devastated the United States. Already scheduled to start at Wayne State University Law School the following fall, he decided to serve his country and try to help in some way. He sought a commission in the U.S. Army during law school, and was commissioned as a lieutenant after graduation.
Dunn, now a partner at Howard & Howard Attorneys in Royal Oak, where he practices business litigation and criminal defense, also is a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve JAG Corps where he has served as a prosecutor and military magistrate for an extended period on active duty.
“Serving in the Army has been tremendously rewarding,” he says. “The people with whom I’ve served have been life and career mentors to me. Some of the things I’ve done – and endured – in the Army have made me a stronger person and better lawyer. Plus, I feel that through my service I’m fulfilling my sense of duty to our country.”
The oldest of three children, Dunn inherited his love of law from his father, an attorney who attended law school while Dunn was a child. After serving at larger law firms, Dunn’s father started his own practice, with his wife as office manager and assistant. The couple regularly brought office matters home.
In his youth, Dunn worked at his father’s practice and grew up around it.
“I even attended a federal court jury trial with him – before Judge (Bernard) Friedman, who let me sit at counsel table during the trial with my dad – and various other hearings. I knew his clients, conducted legal research, and debated issues.”
As Dunn learned about the business and practice of the law, he developed a love for the field.
“Practicing law was all I ever wanted to do,” he says. “I later learned I could practice law in both the military and in a large law firm, which I’ve enjoyed immensely.”
Dunn earned his undergraduate degree from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., which recruited him out of University of Detroit Jesuit High School to play soccer. With a law career in mind, he plumped for a philosophy major as a way to best prepare him to write clearly, think analytically, and speak persuasively.
After earning his J.D. from Wayne Law, he started his career as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Oakland County, prosecuting felony and misdemeanor criminal cases on behalf of victims of crime. He enjoyed the job primarily for two reasons.
“First, I served the public and victims of crime, which I considered admirable service,” he explains. “Second, it was excellent training. Nearly every day for two years, I was in court, on my feet, on the record, questioning witnesses, arguing to judge and juries, and responding to judges’ questions. I learned how to manage victims, opposing counsel, judges and court staff, and my internal office management. I use those skills daily.”
In November 2007, within a couple of months after leaving the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office and starting at Howard & Howard, Dunn received orders mobilizing him onto active duty with XVIII Airborne Corps at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina – one of the largest Army posts in the world – in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He spent a year as a trial counsel for several Airborne combat brigades, including 18th Fires Brigade, 16th Military Police Brigade, and the 20th Engineer Brigade.
“The work of a trial counsel in the Army is analogous to a prosecuting attorney in Oakland County, with the additional component that an Army trial counsel also serves as a legal advisor to the brigade commander on military justice generally,” he explains. “So, in handling court martials, I was able to perform in the Army many similar duties to what I had been doing previously with Oakland County – just in a different uniform and under a different set of rules.”
Since returning from mobilization to Ft. Bragg and rejoining Howard & Howard, Dunn has been assigned by the Army Reserve as a trial counsel to the 300th Military Police Brigade in Inkster.
Then this past January, The Judge Advocate General of the Army, Lt. General Dana Chipman, selected Dunn to serve as a Group Judge Advocate for United States Special Forces Command (Airborne), 5th Special Forces Group, based at Ft. Campbell, Ky. As a Group Judge Advocate to 5th Special Forces Group, he handles some military justice matters, but more broadly he will serve as counsel to the Commander.
Dunn views one of the best parts of his new assignment as being back on jump status. He went to Airborne School in November 2008 at Fort Benning, Ga.
“Airborne school is 22 days, and culminates in making five jumps out of Air Force airplanes flying at elevation of about 1,200 feet while traveling at about 150 knots. I was the only attorney in my class of over 350 students. I made all five jumps without incident. I loved it.”
Dunn also spent 13 days at Air Assault School in Fort Benning in January 2012, which culminated in rappelling out of an Army UH-60 (Blackhawk) helicopter.
“It was the most physically demanding experience of my life,” he says. “I was the only lawyer in my class – which started with 392 students and ended with only 308. I feel fortunate to have made it.”
In his new assignment as Group Judge Advocate for Special Forces Command (Airborne) advising senior Army Special Forces leaders, Dunn says he has more immediate credibility because he has attended and completed some of the same physical training that the Command Group and their soldiers have completed.
“I’m not just another lawyer,” he says.
The Army is a significant part of who he is, he says.
“I see things through my Army lens. I take in and process information and handle difficult situations and crises the same way at my law firm as I do while wearing my Army uniform because of my Army training and experiences. I believe my Army training and experiences bring me calm and perspective to help deliver measured and thoughtful responses for clients during difficult times, and makes me a better lawyer.”
Twice awarded the Army Commendation Medal, Dunn was also awarded the Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, Army Overseas Training Ribbon (for service in Germany), and the Army Service Medal.
Additionally, Dunn was recognized as a Michigan Rising Star attorney every year since 2009, named to the Michigan Lawyer’s Weekly Up & Coming Lawyers list for 2010, selected as a dBusiness Top Attorney for 2013, and named as one of Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson’s 2013 “Elite 40 Under 40” class.
At Howard & Howard, Dunn prosecutes and defends business disputes on behalf of automotive suppliers, defense contractors, financial institutions, real estate development companies, physician groups, construction companies, and businesses in a wide variety of other industries. He also has significant experience in supplier-focused automotive litigation, and also specializes in business ownership oppression litigation involving business stakeholders. Given his prosecutorial experience, he also handles criminal defense matters.
“I enjoy helping people and companies by alleviating their burdens and working hard to resolve their problems – and I love to compete and to win,” he says.
For example, in 2010, Dunn served as lead trial counsel for a financial institution client as the plaintiff in a five-day federal court trial on a civil fraud theory, which resulted in a trial verdict of nearly $3 million in favor his client. Dunn also handled the appeal, which the appellate court affirmed.
More recently, Dunn was retained by an automotive dealership that was victimized by massive employee embezzlement, resulting in the bank alleging defaults by the dealership on the various credit facilities and demanding immediate payment of more than $20 million from the dealership.
“Perhaps equally problematic was the bank’s termination of the dealership’s wholesale credit accommodations – which automotive dealerships require to finance the purchase of new vehicles and to operate,” Dunn notes.
On behalf of the client, Dunn suspended the embezzling employee, worked with the bank to negotiate and execute a forbearance agreement to forestall further action on the alleged defaults and to reinstate the dealership’s wholesale credit accommodations, and assisted and advised the forensic accounting firm.
“Litigation may ensue,” he says. “This matter is continuing, but we’re cautiously optimistic that additional favorable outcomes are achievable.”
Dunn attributes his ability to balance his Army service and his work at Howard & Howard to his wife.
“Elizabeth is a saint,” he says. “She deserves much of the credit. Her patience, kindness, humor, and good counsel to me all result in many of our successes.”
The couple, residents of Rochester Hills and parishioners of St. Andrew Catholic Church, has four children: Abigail, 5, Claire, 4, Aiden, 2, and 3-month-old Colin.
Dunn also enjoys working out, and has given back to the community by volunteering with the Boys & Girls Club of South Oakland County, HAVEN, and the Metropolitan Detroit Bar Association Barristers.
He is also proud of his siblings, who followed him into law and the Army: his sister, Mary, another Wayne Law grad, now works as an associate at a law firm in Troy; and his brother John earned his medical degree from Michigan State College of Human Medicine, through the Army, and is in an orthopedic surgery residency at Ft. Bliss, Texas.
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