By Tom Gantert
Legal News
When Jackson District Judge Joseph Filip introduced Michigan Supreme Court Judge David Viviano at the fall Jackson County Bar Association event, Filip jokingly referred to the Detroit Tigers game starting at 8:10, less than an hour away.
“The game starts at 8:07,” Viviano said. “Not that I’m keeping track.”?
And the 70 people who attended the dinner didn’t miss a pitch as Viviano’s speech and Q&A was completed within a timely 30 minutes.
Viviano, 41, made his rounds to chat with the attorneys at the tables before giving his speech.
Viviano went to the University of Michigan Law School. But it was his undergraduate years at Hillsdale College that he noted in his speech.
While at Hillsdale, he played on the college’s intramural hockey team and spent a lot of time at Jackson’s Optimist Ice Arena.
“You guys have some very tough people here in Jackson,” he said.
His experience as a trial judge gives him insight into what happens “to the people in the trenches every day,” he said.
The current state Supreme Court is very collegiate with a lot of civility, Viviano said, noting: “We discuss things openly and with respect for each other.”
Gov. Rick Snyder appointed Viviano, who lives in Sterling Heights, to the state Supreme Court in February. He replaced former Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway, who resigned.
Viviano was elected to the 16th Circuit Court in 2006. Before taking the bench, he worked at Dickinson Wright PLLC in Detroit and Jenner & Block LLC in Chicago before he started his own firm in Mount Clemens.
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