PHOTO BY JOSH TYRON COURTESY OF JOY FOSSELL
by Cynthia Price
Legal News
At a memorial service for the late Michael Chielens, Executive Director of Legal Aid of Western Michigan until his death Nov. 2, members of a large group of high school friends in attendance remembered an unconventional, brilliant, idealistic young man who was the life of the party and an extraordinary friend.
People who knew him professionally and personally in the present day remember him in just about the same way.
Chielens, born in 1951, died after a fairly brief battle with cancer, leaving those who work at Legal Aid and the Grand Rapids legal professional community as a whole feeling his loss acutely.
The memorial service held Friday afternoon was in the large sanctuary at Fountain Street Church, which was close to full of friends and family, including his Legal Aid of Western Michigan family.
It is difficult to talk about Chielens without referencing Legal Aid of Western Michigan (LAWM), which was his passion and joy.
After graduating from Wayne State University with a B.A. in History, Chielens received his J.D. from University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. Immediately thereafter, in 1978, he started work at Jacksonville (FL) Area Legal Aid. Then in 1983 he returned to Michigan and began at LAWM as a staff attorney, working largely on landlord-tenant cases, and in 1996 became its Executive Director.
Legal Aid of Western Michigan, far from serving just the Grand Rapid area, covers 17 counties and has offices in Holland, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, Niles and St. Joseph as well as the 89 Ionia location.
Chielens was highly competent at managing the large organization despite diminishing financial support from Washington’s Legal Services Corporation and other government sources — as Dan Bonner, managing attorney of LAWM’s Muskegon office, says, “Due to issues both political and funding-related, Legal Aid has gone through some rough seas, but Mike always brought us safely to shore.” Chielens also served as a mentor to a large number of attorneys he hired over the years.
At the memorial service, Elaine Sterrett-Isely, who now works for West Michigan Environmental Action Council, talked about being Chielens’s first hire after he was made Executive Director. She says she shared another of her new boss’s passions, softball, and that made him not only a wonderful, supportive mentor, but also a lasting friend. “I’m going to miss him every day,” Sterrett-Isely said.
Softball and baseball, including the fantasy baseball league for which Chielens served as a “commissioner,” were strong themes in the remarks given by some of Chielens’s teenage friends, many of whom had difficulty containing their emotions.
Still, they were anxious to share stories about the vital, dynamic person they knew and continued to know over the years, including some amazing antics.
Many knew him from a softball team he managed, on which they played. Bill Grant talked about Chielens’s love of A Clockwork Orange, resulting in the team’s being named The Droogs, and in Chielens dressing up many a Halloween in a bowler hat and single set of false eyelashes a la Alex in the film version.
Other high school friends talked about his passion for politics and capacity for being comprehensively informed on what was going on at the local and national levels, at a time of life when most are self-focused.
Another great passion for Chielens was music, with eclectic tastes centered by a love of rock and roll. Those at the memorial service sang “This Land Is Your Land” together, and the service closed out with a recording of “(Keep on) Rockin’ in the Free World” by Neil Young.
LAWM attorney Juan Salazar kept the memorial service moving in light of so many friends and admirers wishing to speak.
During the ceremony, photographs of Chielens flashed on a large screen, including one of him at twenty-something with a huge red Afro.
First to make remarks was the mayor of Grand Rapids, George Heartwell. In his moving tribute, he called Chielens a “prophet,” and said, “Mike meant something different to all of us but he meant something to all of us.” He added, “Mike was more alive even as he was dying than many of us.”
Chielens was active in the legal community, and well-known statewide and nationally in the legal aid arena. He lent his expertise in serving low-income people to such organizations as the Coalition for Community Reinvestment, the Fair Housing Center, the Foreclosure Response Task Force, Kent County Legal Assistance Center, and Legal Services Association of Michigan. He was active in the Grand Rapids Bar Association. State Bar Executive Director Janet Welch attended the memorial service Friday.
Staff attorney Scott Stuart, in private practice for 25 years with “the only law firm that ever won the Michael Barnes award” [LAWM’s award for outstanding pro bono service] before starting at Legal Aid, said in an interview, “What I’ll always remember him for is his passion for serving people who could not otherwise afford legal assistance — as well as his passion for baseball and his passion for beer and his passion for music...
“He was the type of passionate person who wasn’t overbearing and didn’t suck the air out of the room. He had a sense of humor that lightened the mood and made things palatable for people, even if they didn’t agree with him.”
At the memorial service, former LAWM attorney Miriam Aukerman, obviously emotional, summed it up by saying, “Legal Aid was a family because Mike made it that way.”
His own immediate family included wife Jan and daughter Hannah. They lived in the Heritage Hill neighborhood. He is also survived by three sisters.
Donations to Legal Aid in honor of Chielens are welcome. There is a donation button at the LAWM website, www.legalaidwestmich.org.
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