Carrie Sharlow has served as the Assistant Executive Director since January 2023. Since she took this job to promote Michigan’s legal history, she’s using this space to highlight one of her favorite legal legends:
Richard C. Van Dusen (1925 –1991) was an attorney with Dickinson Wright PLLC. Over his career, he also served as a state representative, a delegate to the Michigan Constitutional Convention, a legal advisor to the Governor, and undersecretary of HUD, and so many other things.
I gather he was incredibly intelligent and an effective attorney. But he was also a genuinely kind person with incredible insight. He encouraged people and stood up for people and stood up to people. And he was kind.
When he died unexpectedly in 1991, he was honored by a state senate concurrent resolution and one of his former colleagues remembered him as “a kind person…a very kind per-son…[with] a real deep sense of faith in the public and in the public good.” That’s an excellent epitaph and he’s one historical figure I wish I’d met.