U-M Professor Seen As Pick For Supreme Court

LANSING – In something of a surprise, University of Michigan legal professor Joan Larsen appears likely to be Gov. Rick Snyder’s choice to succeed outgoing Justice Mary Beth Kelly, sources told Gongwer News Service.

Before Larsen’s name came out, most observers expected that either Appeals Judge Kirsten Frank Kelly or Oakland Circuit Judge Colleen O’Brien would be named to the bench. O’Brien had run for the court as a Republican nominee in 2014, but fell short of election.

If named, Larsen will share with Justice Bridget McCormack the career aspects of being a professor at the University of Michigan and not having any judicial experience. She would be the third justice on the bench with no previous judicial experience. Justice Richard Bernstein was elected to court after being primarily in private practice during his career.

But Larsen will also likely come to the bench with a more conservative bent than McCormack. Two sources speaking on condition of anonymity said she was proposed by Chief Justice Robert Young Jr.

Larsen and Young have appeared on programs held by the conservative legal group The Federalist Society.

A phone call left at Larsen’s office in Ann Arbor was not returned.

Kelly is leaving the court to return to private practice and to spend more time promoting juvenile justice issues. Nominated by the Republicans, she was elected in 2012, and while she had generally sided with the GOP majority on the court, she has proven a more independent vote. She opposed the majority in 2014 that held that juveniles already imprisoned for life without parole (before the U.S. Supreme Court held that was unconstitutional) were not eligible to have parole hearings. And this past summer Kelly wrote the dissent in the opinion that held right-to-work applied to state civil service workers.

Larsen is now special counsel to the U-M law school dean. She earned her law degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. After graduation, she clerked for both U.S. Appeals Judge David Sentelle and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

She worked with the firm of Sidley and Austin in Washington, D.C. She also served as deputy assistant U.S. attorney general in 2002 and 2003 in the office of legal counsel. She began with the U-M law school in 1998.

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