Sherrie L. Farrell is the Office Managing Member for the Firm's Detroit office, and Chair of the Firm's Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Ms. Farrell acts as lead counsel in various commercial matters including partnership disputes, lease disputes, breach of contract and bankruptcy disputes. Her previous career as an award-winning public relations and crisis communications professional has become an integral tool in counseling clients on a wide array of commercial issues. She has provided counsel on litigation risk management, discovery management, real estate project management for real estate interests and public policy and litigation issues involving local governments. Ms. Farrell approaches each client matter as a partner working with the client to advance a solution or business objective.

Ms. Farrell has significant experience serving as a National Coordinating Counsel. She serves as National Discovery Counsel for a Fortune 25 manufacturer in asbestos and other toxic tort litigation. Ms. Farrell also had the primary responsibility to develop and defend Fortune 25 corporate fact and expert witnesses in national tort litigation. She also has represented manufacturers, closely-held corporations, auto suppliers and construction companies in both litigated and non-litigated commercial matters.

In her corporate bankruptcy and business restructuring practice, Ms. Farrell’s representation includes global automotive suppliers in customer, vendor and supplier Chapter 11 bankruptcies; creditors in Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy; a state airport authority; construction companies; and troubled suppliers. She also has represented other interested parties including staffing corporations, financial institutions and other regional and national businesses in commercial and bankruptcy-related litigation, preferences, creditors’ rights matters, out-of-court restructurings, loan workouts, and issues involving the UCC. 

Ms. Farrell served as the head of the Firm’s first Cybersecurity group. Her extensive experience in the data security area includes drafting data security plans for a board of directors of an insurance company; managing data breaches and incidents for, among others, health company, insurance company, and auto manufacturing supplier. Ms. Farrell has drafted data security policies for clients including enterprise wide data security plans, incident response plans and computer and internet access policies.  In addition to authoring several articles on this topic, she’s also presented to a local corporate secretaries organization, an auto manufacturer and was featured on a corporate counsel panel focused on cybersecurity.

In addition to providing legal counsel, she provides counsel to area businesses on regional government and public policy issues and has experience serving the City of Detroit during three different mayoral administrations.

Ms. Farrell recently was featured in Law360's Minority Powerbrokers series, named to the 2019 Lawyer of Color’s Inaugural Nation’s Best List, and recognized as one of Savoy Magazine’s Most Influential Black Lawyers (2018, 2015). She has been recognized as a Michigan Super Lawyer since 2014 and named in The Best Lawyers in America^© since 2013.

Bar Admissions

Michigan, 1997

Education
Detroit College of Law, J.D., cum laude Wayne State University, B.A.

• Wolverine Bar Association
• National Bar Association
• Federal Bar Association
• Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association
• American Bar Association