This Week

Bench Battle

Two Jews are among five candidates
on the Aug. 8 primary ballot.

DIANA LIEBERMAN
St4ff Writer

Ill

ive candidates will appear
on the Aug. 8 primary bal-
lot for a single seat on
Oakland County's Circuit
Court bench. Two of them are mem-
bers of the. Jewish community.
Both Paul J. Fischer and Randall S.
"Randy" Miller say they are running
for the six-year position on their own
merits, rather than campaigning
against anyone else.
Also vying for the Circuit Court
seat are attorneys Patrick J. Brennan,
Richard D. Kuhn Jr. and Michael P.
Marsalese. The two candidates receiv-
ing the most votes will compete in the
November general election.
In a recent interview, Fischer said
Circuit Court is "the ideal place for dis-
pensing and administering justice. The
people are right there before you. It's a
chance to be the impartial arbiter of
what is right, or, in a jury trial, to tell
the jury what the law actually says."
Fischer, 42, has been a practicing
attorney for 17 years. Currently
employed by the Birmingham law
firm of Hyman Lippitt P.C., he has
served as an assistant prosecutor for
Oakland County and as a member of
the Judicial Tenure Commission. This
experience has given him a breadth of
knowledge about criminal law, com-
plex commercial litigation, divorce
and judicial ethics, he said.
Fischer was raised in Southfield,
where his father was a physician in
general practice. A graduate of
Southfield-Lathrup High School and
the University of Michigan, he
received his law degree from Wayne
State University Law School.
He is a member of Young Israel of
Southfield, where he serves as the
synagogue's vice president and gab-
bai, or sexton. Fischer and his wife,
Karoline Puder, a physician at

"I see a lack of
justice in far too
many courtrooms.
Individuals are not
given a chance to
present their cases
in the way the
judicial system
was set up to do."

Detroit Medical Center, are parents
to Alexander, nearly 1.
Randy Miller, 36, is an attorney
specializing in civil rights, employ-
ment, personal injury and commercial
litigation.
"I see a lack of justice in far too
many courtrooms," he said.
"Individuals are not given a chance to
present their cases in the way the judi-
cialsystem was set up to do.”
Partisan politics are not supposed
to play a part in the judiciary, Miller
said, and he pledges to keep them out
of his courtroom.

— Randall S. Miller

"The basis of legal
philosophy is set
out in the
Talmud: asking
questions, asking
questions. By
doing that, you
come to what we
call the truth."

— Paul J. Fischer

A practicing attorney for eight
years, Miller graduated from Andover
High School and Michigan State
University. He received his legal train-
ing at Detroit College of Law. For the
past four years, Miller has been an
associate with the Southfield-based
firm of Lopatin, Miller, Freedman,
Bluestone, Herskovic and Domol. His
initial legal experience was with the

firm of Fieger, Fieger and Schwartz,
followed by four years with Sommers,
Schwartz, Silver and Schwartz.
He lives in Bloomfield Township
with his wife, Margo, and their
daughters, Jessica, 0/2, and Amanda,
3V2. They are members of Temple
Beth El.
Miller, son of attorney Sheldon
Miller, said his childhood was fairly

protected. "My years at MSU opened
my eyes to a world of discrimination I
knew existed, but had never before
experienced," he said.
Members of other minorities in the
United States find this discrimination
even harder to escape than Jews, he
noted.
"That was one of the main reasons
I started practicing civil rights and
employment law," Miller said. "The
rest came from my father, a long-time
member of the NAACP."
Jewish tradition is "a great back-
ground for a judicial career," Fischer
said. "The basis of legal philosophy is
set out in the Talmud: asking ques-
tions, asking questions. By doing that,
you come to what we call the truth."
Although there will be six Circuit
Court seats on the ballot in the
November general election, Fischer,
Miller and the other three candidates
in the Aug. 8 primary are running for
a single seat. It is the one being vacat-
ed by the retirement of Circuit Court
Judge David Breck.
The other five incumbent candi-
dates — Judges Alice Gilbert, Denise
Langford Morris, Wendy Potts,
Edward Sosnick and Deborah Tyner
— face no opposition in November's
general election. For this reason, their
names will not appear on the primary
ballot. ❑

5/12
2000

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