There is a fierceness about Lisa J. Hamameh. She is funny, self-deprecating, and naturally engaging. She also stands firmly, works hard, and delivers her words with a force that makes others listen. When she’s focused, you can see her right eyebrow arch up her forehead and that’s when you know that there is no stopping her.
The 91st president of the State Bar of Michigan, Hamameh is the first Palestinian American and the ninth woman to ever lead the bar. She is a fierce advocate, fiercely dependable, and an even fiercer friend.
Hamameh is different. Her less-traveled path wasn’t always easy, but she realizes now it is core to who she is and why she does what she does.
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Hamameh’s roots lead directly to Taybeh. It sits at the heart of centuries of conflict, nine miles from Jerusalem and seven miles from Ramallah and is the last Christian village in the West Bank. Then known as Ephraim, it is where Jesus sought refuge in the short time between when believers know him to have raised Lazarus and when he returned to Jerusalem, his fate sealed, on Palm Sunday.
Taybeh is where her mother and father were raised, lived, and survived on the same street just a few houses from one another. Neither graduated from high school. Their lives were filled with struggle, but also a deep traditional network of family and community support. Their families were always intertwined, even known to have served as wet nurses for the other.
Hanna Esa Hamameh, which translates into John Jesus Hamameh, came to the United States in 1952, thanks to a window of opportunity opened by his father, who had previously immigrated to the United States and become a citizen. Although his father ended up returning to the homeland at the bequest of his wife, he passed his citizenship to his children.
Hanna Hamameh migrated to the United States and worked a variety of jobs, including a stint at Detroit’s famed Silver Cup Bakery, to establish himself. He returned to Palestine to marry, as is custom with arranged marriages, and Jeanette Bishara became his bride in 1958.
He went back to the United States, made the necessary arrangements, and the following year returned to Taybeh to collect his wife and take her to her new life.
He was 25. She was 19. They were a somewhat typical family of immigrants, joining a brother and a few other family members who had already made their way to the United States and settled in Michigan. Hanna and Jeanette then served as the bridge to help other brave brothers, sisters, and cousins who chose to give up everything they had ever known for a chance for something different, something better.
They made their home near the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit. Jeanette Hamameh would sometimes take the bus downtown to eat lunch at Hudson’s, maintaining the old ways in the ways she could and dedicating herself to being a good, traditional wife.
Except she wasn’t a traditional wife, because a traditional wife should have a traditional family. For more than a decade, the couple struggled to have children. Finally, in 1970, they had their first child, Linda. In 1973, they were blessed with their second child. The doctors said it was a boy. Instead, it was Lisa.
So, it seems, even from the very beginning, Lisa Hamameh has been bucking expectations.
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Hanna Esa Hamameh died on July 27, 1977, leaving behind his wife and two daughters, ages 7 and 4. The family was left with no life insurance and no source of income. Crime had started to seep into their neighborhood. Although they had little left, their home became a target.
Her mother became the matriarch and the breadwinner. At first, she worked in the office of an uncle, who was a pediatrician, but having her mom so far away terrified young Lisa, who would cry inconsolably when her mother left.
The now-untraditional family depended on their church, their family, and government assistance. Lisa Hamameh looks back and knows it doesn’t all add up. Their needs far outstretched their resources, and yet they made it.
Within a year, the trio of Hamamehs left Detroit proper and set up home in federally subsidized housing up I-94 in Roseville. To pacify her younger daughter, Jeanette Hamameh took a job across the street at a Fashion Bug, earning $11,000 a year before retiring from the now defunct retail chain.
“To this day, I don’t know how she did it,” Lisa Hamameh said, both sadness and awe tingeing her voice.
Trying to give her daughters the best opportunity possible, Jeanette Hamameh talked to the local priest about getting a discount for the girls go to St. Angela Catholic School. He asked how much she made and told her that wasn’t enough to live on, much less pay for school. The girls enrolled in St. Angela tuition-free, attending elementary and middle school there. Lisa Hamameh began to learn the power of an education and, surrounded by families who could afford private school, she quickly learned that her family was poor.
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Hamameh family photo circa 1976. Clockwise from top left: Hanna,
Jeannette, Lisa and Linda. |
Teenage Lisa wanted to fit in, but her family couldn’t afford Benetton jackets and other brand names like the rest of the families. She did have one pair of Guess jeans, though. Years later, her mom admitted that she found a pair of Guess Jeans at a Salvation Army, painstakingly cut off all the Guess labels and sewed them onto a new pair of jeans they could afford so that Lisa, too, could have a pair of the trendy denim.
At 15, Lisa got her first job. She worked at a fruit market as a cashier. Still in high school, she soon was promoted to head cashier, where she found herself hiring and firing her classmates. About a year later, she was promoted into the office, handling all the businesses's money and finances. She borrowed $2,000 from her uncle to buy a car and paid him $100 a month until she paid it off.
As high school started drawing to a close, Lisa made plans for college, just like her classmates. She enrolled at Central Michigan University and even had her roommates lined up.
Then, reality hit.
She didn’t have the money to go away to school. She was devastated. Instead, she stayed home and took a few classes at Wayne State University. The responsible overachiever started hanging with a “bad crowd” and spiraled that first semester. It scared her.
“I needed to do something drastic. I literally packed up my car with everything I owned and moved to Texas,” Hamameh said. She stayed with family, worked at a local Kroger, and broke off her old ties.
She knew she wanted more out of life.
“I pulled myself out of the situation I was in,” Lisa said. She returned home and returned to her job at the fruit market. She continued her studies at Wayne State and made a discovery that changed the trajectory of her life: federal student loans.
The opportunity for a student loan meant Lisa Hamameh finally knew that she would be able to afford to finish her undergrad, and she realized she could do even more. She could go anywhere and do anything any of her rich friends could do. For the first time, she could pursue her dreams.
***
Hamameh was drawn to criminal justice courses and thought maybe she’d become a probation officer. A year or so from graduation, she started seriously considering law school.
She consulted with a family friend, who was also a law school professor. He reviewed her LSAT score and grade point. His advice: Forget it; you will never get into law school. Her mother, always a traditionalist, was also less than enthusiastic about her daughter entering a profession that didn’t really seem like a job for a woman.
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Lisa Hamameh after receiving her Juris Doctor from Wayne State
University Law School in 2000. |
Well, that’s all it took for Lisa to raise that right eyebrow and make damn sure she went to law school.
Indeed, Hamameh graduated with her bachelor’s in criminal justice in 1996, started at Wayne State University Law School the following year, earned her juris doctor in 2000, and joined the State Bar of Michigan the same year — successfully overcoming every challenge to become the first woman lawyer in her family.
She flourished in her practice — moving from Adkison, Need & Allen to Foster Swift Collins & Smith before joining Rosati, Schultz, Joppich & Amtsbuechler as a shareholder. She specializes in municipal law and serves as city attorney for Berkley, South Lyon, White Lake Township, Highland Township, and Holly Township.
Throughout her career, she has also worked steadfastly to give back.
Her volunteer work is extensive, but she talks about it only when prompted and usually accompanied by a funny, self-deprecating story, like how she is qualified to color with kids at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan or how she learned what a shim is by working with Habitat for Humanity.
In addition to her work with the State Bar of Michigan, Hamameh also serves on the Michigan Supreme Court’s Commission on Well-Being in the Law, Michigan State Bar Foundation Board of Directors, and Oakland County Bar Foundation Board of Trustees. She is an active member of the Oakland County Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and the Michigan Association of Municipal Attorneys.
She also has volunteered her time judging various moot court and mock trial competitions as well as speaking to students about the legal profession. Outside the legal sphere, her volunteer efforts include the Susan G. Komen 3-Day, Fight for Air Climb, Capuchin Soup Kitchen, Lighthouse of Oakland County, and many other local programs.
And, still, she worries she isn’t doing enough.
To this day, she remains keenly aware her life could have gone much differently and that many others weren’t as lucky. She had help when she needed it. She found a path out of poverty. She achieved her parents’ American dream.
She doesn’t give back simply because she wants to; she is inherently driven to, like a debt that she keeps trying to pay back. She guffaws when asked if she thinks she’s been lucky, preposterous to her that the question would even need to be asked. “Lucky? I am blessed. I am so blessed.”
Her drive to give back, combined with a tendency toward perfectionism, is something that Hamameh knows is common among attorneys and can, if not kept measured, become overwhelming. Hamameh actively works to keep perspective these days. It’s part of her commitment to promoting attorney well-being both personally and professionally, but it also is the product of seeing life a little bit differently after surviving two brain surgeries.
It all started simply enough: She lost her sense of smell. It was 2018, and Covid hadn’t even started to make international headlines, so it all seemed innocuous enough. An oddity that was inconvenient, but also funny. After Googling possible causes and seeing a brain tumor listed, she and friends started an ongoing joke blaming the tumor for any little mistake or misstep. It took months before she finally was able to see a neurologist, who ordered an MRI. She has one of those healthcare communication apps, so with a simple ding of her phone she saw the unthinkable: a 5.6 by 5.3 cm brain tumor.
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Lisa Hamameh delivers her inaugural address September 19, 2025 at
Detroit Marriott-Troy |
“Seek consultation with a neurosurgeon immediately.”
Weeks of uncertainty, consultations, and frustration with the medical system followed. Oddly, one of the side effects of the tumor was that it temporarily reduced her emotional reactivity. She went about getting her trust together and made arrangements. Looking back, it devastates her to know that her convenient ability to withdraw came at the same time her family and loved ones were dealing with the full emotional rollercoaster and she wasn’t there for them in the way they needed her.
On January 30, 2019, Lisa had her first brain surgery. The tumor was a benign meningioma, a slow-growing, noncancerous tumor that grows from the protective membrane covering the brain. Hers was located in the olfactory region, permanently damaging her sense of smell.
Hamameh, determined as ever, decided to fast-track her recovery because she still wanted to be able to give a planned speech at the Michigan Townships Association conference just eight weeks later. She did, of course.
In 2023, doctors discovered that small pieces of the tumor had been left after the surgery. Two spots were growing and compromising her optic nerve and her vision. A more intense brain surgery followed, if the intensity of such things can be measured. Doctors were able to remove key remaining pieces of the tumor, but there was one piece they couldn’t reach. It’s small and they are still monitoring it, but it isn’t reason for concern, Hamameh said.
Then vice president for the State Bar of Michigan Board of Commissioners, Hamameh was back taking meetings within a month of the surgery. Most people never knew it even happened. She knows, though, that the surgeries helped her to become a better person and a better attorney.
“I think the surgeries really helped put perspective into my life,” Hamameh said.
It helped push her to actively prioritize her well-being, to seek a balance in her life, to keep the pressure that she puts on herself in check, and to make the issue of attorney well-being one of her top priorities as president.
At her inauguration on September 19, 2025, Hamameh outlined her top three priorities:
- To urge attorneys to remember why they chose this path and to recommit to their role as defenders of the rule of law.
- To unabashedly call out the all-too-prevalent stigma surrounding mental health and personal well-being in the legal profession.
- To raise awareness about the depth and complexity of the services offered to Michigan attorneys by the State Bar of Michigan.
“The oath we took before we began the practice of law is not just ceremonial. It is a solemn promise to protect the rule of law, to defend the rights and liberties of all people, and to promote justice — not just in words, but in action,” Hamameh said.
Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Megan Cavanagh, a fellow Wayne State Law alumna, administered the oath of office to Hamameh. Friends from high school, law school, townships she serves, past coworkers, attorneys from every corner of Michigan and family packed the room.
Even at 5-foot-3, Hamameh can loom large, even in a crowd. Her passion and personal drive captivated the room as she delivered her inaugural address. Few people really know, or at least knew, the story behind Hamameh. Her honesty and the raw power of her words left people in awe.
“This life experience is core to who I am and it is the foundation of my compassion and understanding of the plight of others and my desire to give back. This life experience is why I stand here as your president of the State Bar of Michigan,” Hamameh said. “I believe in the power of this profession. I believe in the good that lawyers can do. And, I believe that together, we can leave our profession — and our society — better than we found it.”
Her eyebrow was raised, and everyone knew that this woman — who bucked tradition, overcame poverty, worked her way through undergrad and law school, and built this life for herself — is one of a kind. She is a trailblazer. She is an attorney and a leader, but different.
Wonderfully, inspiringly — fiercely — different.