10/25/06

State Bar of Michigan General Counsel Janet K. Welch has been appointed interim executive director at the Bar effective October 23rd 2006. In her new role, she will oversee the day-to-day operations of the State Bar, implement policies set by the Board of Commissioners and the Representative Assembly, and select and direct the efforts of State Bar staff.

Ms. Welch is on an executive search team that is working to appoint a new executive director for the Bar by early next year. In August, the former Executive Director, John Berry accepted a position with The Florida Bar where he will oversee lawyer regulation and professionalism.

Ms. Welch joined the Bar in December 2000 as the general counsel, coming from the Michigan Supreme Court, where she served as Supreme Court Counsel for four years. She has had an extensive career in state government that started as a legislative analyst for the Michigan House of Representatives. In 1980, she was chosen to create a nonpartisan legislative analysis office for the Michigan Senate, and served as its director for five years before attending law school.

After a clerkship with Michigan Supreme Court Justice Robert P. Griffin, Welch accepted a position as executive analyst in the Office of the Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, where her work included analysis of legislative issues affecting the judicial system. In that capacity, she served as Reporter for the Commission on the Courts in the 21st Century, and as staff to the Michigan Justice Project. In 1998, the Council of State Governments named her a Toll Fellow for outstanding achievement and service to state government.

A Michigan native, Welch is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Albion College and the University of Michigan Law School. She is also a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government State and Local Senior Executive Program at Harvard University and was a Fulbright Scholar in comparative literature at the University of Zagreb in the former Yugoslavia.

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