The section had its two scheduled seminars during my term at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas and at Boyne Highlands in June. We also changed our meeting site from the University Club in East Lansing to the State Bar headquarters, where the staff was most accommodating and we saved a great deal of money switching to pizza, salad, and pop. We still kept the centrality of our meeting site as a convenience to council members around the state.

We had our State of the Law Update at the State of Michigan Plaza Building in November and Co-Chairs Deborah Strain, Richard Warsh, and Mark Robbins did an outstanding job. Jennifer Granholm, Michigan Attorney General, addressed the group and did not let equipment failure hamper her presentation.

Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid developed some new policies regarding redemptions and their interests, and this has caused a great deal of consternation. Craig Peterson, assistant director of the Bureau, has been a great help in trying to untangle this legal Gordian knot. Until the policies are further clarified, we expect some major impacts on redemptions.

Detroit and Flint moved to new hearing sites, and Mount Clemens will also move around the end of the year. Subpoenas will hopefully be signed by attorneys in the near future as soon as the enabling legislation clears both houses of the Legislature.

The section opposed eliminating mediators because of their valuable contributions to moving cases along and dealing with those issues over short periods of wage loss or individual medical bills that otherwise would get lost in the shuffle. We heard that the Legislature has mandated that there shall be six mediators for the state, but we haven't seen the paperwork as yet.

Our section treasurer, Alan Helmore, has done an outstanding job this year and is making sure that fiscal accountability is observed with all our activities. Unfortunately, many bills from the past rolled into this administration, and it has affected our events.

I am endeavoring to visit all the hearing sites in the state by the September Annual Meeting and am looking into ways to have life-saving equipment at our major hearing locations. We not only need the equipment but we also have to train personnel in the use of defibrillators, etc.

On the whole, this has been what the Chinese would refer to as an interesting year.

Alexander T. Ornstein, Section Chair