Anna Maiuri, Member in Dickinson Wright’s Troy office, has enjoyed an accomplished career as one of Michigan’s best known environmental lawyers. Having been listed as one of the top environmental lawyers consistently over the last several years by Best Lawyers in America, Michigan Super Lawyers and Crain’s Detroit Business, Anna attributes her success to “understanding the client’s needs and helping them to find practical solutions in an efficient manner.”
This passion to find solutions started when she was ten years old and decided that she wanted to be a lawyer. She didn’t take the normal path by jumping into law school right after graduating from Wayne State University. Instead, she took a job with the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) and traveled extensively across the U.S. analyzing the outcomes of federal programs, writing reports on the results to the U.S. Congress and suggesting ways to improve accountability.
“It was a great first professional job and gave me excellent training on how to write in an objective but persuasive manner. It also taught me a great deal about regulators and their motivations… information that I have found invaluable in my legal career. While I was happy at the GAO, I craved the challenge of going to law school and eventually becoming a lawyer.”
In 1993, Anna joined Miller Canfield and began a practice that focused on transactional environmental, energy and regulatory law. She also became very active on various firm management committees (including recruiting, mentoring, and heading up her practice group). Anna noted that she had the opportunity to learn not only how to practice law from some of the best, but also how to help run a business. “I believe all these experiences have helped me to better relate to the business challenges of our clients,” says Anna.
Last year, Anna decided to make a change and joined Dickinson Wright as a Member. “Dickinson Wright, with its’ vast resources and client-focused vision is a great fit for me,” she says. “It’s been a wonderful transition so far and I have enjoyed getting to know my new colleagues and their practices.”
For Anna, the complex cases are her favorite. She has extensive experience in helping corporations, business owners and operators assess environmental liabilities when purchasing, selling or leasing assets both across the country and around the world. The reason she loves this work is because not only is it intellectually stimulating, but she loves working with a team of people on large mergers and acquisitions and to help facilitate those projects.
Toward that end, Anna prides herself in obtaining complex permitting for her manufacturing clients so they can increase plant capacity that will lead to more jobs. She says that Michigan regulators told her that the permit she helped recently obtain for her client was “the most complicated one they have ever done in the state of Michigan.” This is the type of work Anna finds most satisfying.
When Anna is not thinking about work (she has said that was one of her biggest challenges), she is busy helping to build a camp for seriously ill children in Michigan. Anna sits on the board for North Star Ranch, a non-profit that plans to break ground on the camp in 2014.
To learn more about Anna and her practice, please click here.
