By Tom Kirvan
Legal News
At a time when job mobility has become an increasing challenge for law firm CEOs across the country, Honigman Chair David Foltyn stands as a prime example of the outlier – a leader who is a “lifer.”
Foltyn, who doubles as Honigman’s chair and CEO, has headed the largest law firm in Michigan for the past 14 years, beginning his career there as a summer associate in the late 1970s while a stellar student at the University of Michigan Law School.
“And I can proudly say that I have been with the firm ever since,” said Foltyn, who will mark his 42nd year as a Honigman attorney this fall.
The firm, of course, has a storied history (see sidebar, Page 3) and traces its roots to the post-war year of 1948 when Jason Honigman, a Russian immigrant, and Milton (Jack) Miller, a Baltimore native, joined legal forces in Detroit’s First National Building. Over the course of the next 13 years, two more surnames – belonging to Alan E. Schwartz and Irwin Cohn – were added to the firm’s letterhead, setting the stage for the twin forces of growth and success during the next six decades.
Much of that success, according to Foltyn, can be attributed to acquiring and retaining top legal talent, whether from the finest law schools in the nation or from some of the most prominent business law firms in the U.S. That commitment to seeking out the “best and the brightest” has been a Honigman trademark since its founding, said Foltyn.
“Making talent-related moves have helped to spur our growth and our development of new markets over the years,” said Foltyn, who is a product of West Bloomfield High School.
Most recently, Honigman looked west to Chicago to find the firm’s new Chief Operating Officer Thomas Gaughan, a certified public accountant who earned his M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Chicago.
Gaughan, who received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Loyola University, formerly served as co-COO of ArentFox Schiff LLP after having held earlier C-level law firm roles as a COO at Baker McKenzie, one of largest law firms in the world, and as chief financial officer for DLA Piper and Locke Lord.
“We are thrilled for Tom to join our leadership team,” Foltyn said in a prepared statement. “Following an extensive national search, we found that Tom possesses the entrepreneurial spirit and pragmatism which are at the core of Honigman’s culture and approach to our business. We will surely benefit from his business perspective in the development and execution of strategic plans and his experience in managing operations within law firms.
“Honigman continues to grow sensibly, to grow profitably, and to take advantage of the financial strength that we’ve carefully cultivated over the years,” added Foltyn. “Working alongside our new Chicago office managing partner Kristen Boike, Tom’s presence also underscores our commitment to the growth strategy of our newer offices in Chicago and Washington, D.C.”
Gaughan will be based in Chicago and succeeds longtime Honigman COO Robert Kubic, who recently retired after serving in the key executive role since 2008.
With six offices in Michigan, Honigman opened its Chicago office in 2015 and now counts more than 40 attorneys there, according to Foltyn. Honigman’s Chicago attorneys focus on corporate, private equity and complex U.S. and international financing transactions, real estate transactions and financings, litigation, life sciences, intellectual property and patent litigation, and insurance recovery and counseling.
The Honigman office in the nation’s capital opened two years ago in the midst of the pandemic, and “we have strategically built our presence there” in the IP practice area, global real estate, life sciences, M & A, private equity, and white collar criminal defense, Foltyn indicated. Matthew Schneider, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, serves as co-leader of the Investigations and White Collar Defense Practice Group.
In 2021, Foltyn’s contract was extended through 2026, a vote of confidence that he deeply appreciated.
“I was very flattered by the trust that my partners have placed in me,” said Foltyn. “It’s a job that I love and it’s a role that challenges me every day.”
Foltyn is the son of Czech immigrants who settled in Metro Detroit, where they owned and operated a wholesale drapery business for many years after surviving the Nazi reign of terror during World War II.
“I grew up in West Bloomfield when it was a very rural community and Orchard Lake Road was a two-lane road,” Foltyn said of his upbringing.
He was the first in his family “to go away to college,” earning a bachelor business administration degree with high distinction from the University of Michigan in 1977. He enrolled in the U-M Law School in the fall of ’77, serving as senior editor of the Michigan Law Review from 1979-80 and winning the prestigious Henry M. Campbell Moot Court Competition in 1980. He graduated magna cum laude from the U-M Law School in 1980 before joining Honigman, where he has focused his practice in the various aspects of corporate law.
In addition to his CEO responsibilities at Honigman, Foltyn serves on the boards of the Detroit Regional Chamber, the Detroit Economic Club, the Downtown Detroit Partnership, and the United Way for Southeastern Michigan, where he was board chair from 2019-21.
Community involvement “energizes me,” said Foltyn, as does his commitment to his wife, Elyse, and their blended family of seven children and three grandchildren. The couple has been married for 22 years and met when Elyse was an executive vice president of Munder Capital.
“My wife is an incredible person and is very active at Cranbrook, where our twin sons are juniors,” said Foltyn, whose twin daughters are rising sophomores at U-M. “She also has served for many years as board chair of MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit), which has enriched both of our lives.”
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A look back at a ‘legend’ in Detroit firm’s legal lore
By Tom Kirvan
Legal News
Some 27 years ago, in celebration of the centennial of The Detroit Legal News, the paper published a magazine honoring 16 “Legal Legends” from Detroit over the 1895 to 1995 time frame.
“It was a daunting task,” the then-editor of The Legal News admitted in the introduction to the magazine. A few paragraphs later, the editor would up the verbal ante, calling it a “Herculean task.”
Indeed it was, and it was left in the hands of a blue-ribbon selection panel headed by U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn. He was joined on the panel by Judge Maura Corrigan of the Michigan Court of Appeals, Judge Barbara Hackett of the U.S. District Court, attorney George Roumell, and Judge Myron Wahls of the Michigan Court of Appeals.
“Without the tireless leadership of Detroit lawyers, the auto industry might not have made the successful transition from a collection of family-owned garages, the Mackinac Bridge might still be just a ‘good idea,’ and the nation’s talented work force might never have found adequate representation through collective bargaining,” it was said in the magazine’s intro.
With that – and more – in mind, the selection panel narrowed a list of more than 80 lawyers and judges to just a select 16. In alphabetical order, the honorees included: George W. Crockett Jr., Don M. Dickinson, William Henry Gallagher, Ernest Goodman, Martha W. Griffiths, Jason L. Honigman, Ira W. Jayne, Damon J. Keith, Joseph W. Louisell, Wade H. McCree Jr., Sidney T. Miller, Frank Murphy, Henrietta E. Rosenthal, D. Augustus Straker, Maurice Sugar, and Richard C. Van Dusen.
“It is the strength of their intellect and the courage of their convictions that set the ‘Legal Legends’ apart,” it was said. “They bravely stuck to the fundamentals of making the laws of the land work and keeping the promises of our forefathers.”
Each of their stories were told in riveting detail throughout the pages of the magazine, and periodically have been re-told by us as a reminder of their legal legacies.
For a sample taste of the legendary pie, we offer an anecdotal gem about Jason L. Honigman, founder of one of Detroit’s prominent law firms and “author of the rules that governed court procedure for three decades.”
Honigman, who graduated first in his class at the University of Michigan Law School in 1926, “helped draft the state’s no-fault divorce law, the statute abolishing garnishment before judgment, and an amendment to investigate and discipline misconduct by judges,” according to the magazine profile.
At a 1990 dedication ceremony of a law school auditorium named after him at U-M, Honigman was described by U.S. District Judge Charles Joiner in particularly glowing terms.
“He demonstrated the kind of public commitment to the improvement of the law and the process of administering justice that is equaled by no one,” Joiner said of Honigman, who died in 1990 at age 85.
Aside from his legal and business brilliance, Honigman also was a self-admitted “workaholic,” a character trait that almost proved to be his undoing one evening.
Milton Miller, his law partner, witnessed as much.
“It was 11 one evening shortly after Honigman and Miller had founded their own firm,” wrote Eric Pope in the profile of Honigman. “Honigman was writing his book on Michigan court rules in his office. Miller, researching in the library, smelled smoke. When he opened the hallway door to investigate, black smoke blotted out the red exit signs and began to choke him. Frantic, he ran back to Honigman’s office.
“‘Jason, I want to show you something right now,’” Miller exclaimed.
His partner’s reply: “No, no, I’m occupied right now.”
After Miller uttered a few choice words to his partner, Honigman finally got up from his desk to take a peek at flames lapping at their office door.
“Close the door, you’re letting the smoke in,” Honigman yelled.
Within minutes, help was on the way.
“‘Then, I heard fire engines. I heard glass breaking. I couldn’t concentrate not knowing whether I was living or dying,’” Miller recalled.
Honigman, on the other hand, had better things to do.
“Honigman continued to work right through the fire that had burned everything down to the masonry in the suite next door,” Pope wrote in the profile of the Detroit Legal Legend. “When the firemen finally reached the two lawyers, Honigman was still busy at his desk.”
No doubt hard at work polishing an age-old expression dear to his heart:
“Burning the midnight oil.”
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