Michigan State Fires General Counsel, Names 4th One in a Year
Acting university President Satish Udpa announced late Friday that Robert Young Jr. was “relieved of his duties as university vice president and general counsel.”
February 04, 2019 at 05:47 PM
4 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Corporate Counsel
Still bogged down in a yearlong search for a new president after the Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal, Michigan State University is suddenly searching for a new general counsel too. Four different lawyers have run the general counsel's office in the past year.
Acting university President Satish Udpa announced late Feb. 1 that Robert Young Jr. was “relieved of his duties as university vice president and general counsel.” Fired without cause, Young can collect the full amount due under his three-year, $1.2 million contract for his eight months of work. Young could not be reached for comment, and a university spokeswoman did not immediately respond to messages Monday.
During that time he oversaw the school's response to over 300 Nassar victims who sued the university, and he led the negotiations that reached a $500 million settlement with them.
Udpa's five-sentence announcement added, “We appreciate that Bob stepped in last year to help the university with the settlement and many legal issues facing MSU. It was a time of transition in the general counsel's office.”
Udpa said deputy general counsel Brian Quinn would become acting general counsel during the search for a permanent one.
Quinn joined the general counsel's office as an assistant general counsel in February 2016, and Young promoted him to deputy general counsel last August. Before that, Quinn worked as a partner at Lansing, Michigan, law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn for over nine years.
From late 2016 to early 2018 the school was embroiled in the scandal caused by Nassar, a university sports doctor who treated student-athletes. The scandal occurred under the watch of then-general counsel Robert Noto, who retired under pressure with a $436,000 severance package; as well as under then-President Lou Anna Simon, who also was pressured to resign.
Simon is due in state court Tuesday for a preliminary hearing on criminal charges of obstructing justice. She allegedly lied to investigators about her knowledge of the Nassar affair.
She was replaced a year ago by interim president John Engler, a former Republican governor of Michigan.
In February 2018 Engler announced Noto's leaving and said the school was hiring Young, then of counsel at the Lansing law firm Dickinson Wright, as a special counsel in charge of the Nassar legal matters. The school said then-deputy general counsel Kristine Zayko would become acting general counsel.
When Zayko resigned under pressure, Engler named Young as permanent general counsel on June 1. But then politics intervened. On Jan. 1, two newly elected trustees—both women who campaigned on changing the university culture—swung the board of four Democrats and four Republicans to a 6-2 Democrat majority.
On Jan. 18 the new board decided to push Engler into leaving over insensitive statements he had made about the Nassar victims. The former governor had appointed Young to the Michigan Supreme Court in 1999, and the two had been allies ever since.
Critics had objected to Young's hiring both as special counsel and later as general counsel. He had written opinions on cases in which he refused to hold a company or a government entity liable for rape or sexual abuse by employees.
Attorney Rachael Denhollander, the woman and victim who first spoke out against Nassar, strongly opposed Young's hiring. She told the Detroit News that Young has “an absolutely abhorrent track record as a judge, on the specific issue of sexual assault.”
On Saturday after Young's firing, Denhollander tweeted: “Thank you @michiganstateu. Thank you to acting President Udpa, and to the members of the [board of trustees] who supported this. This means a great deal to survivors.”
The critics accused Young of taking a hard line in negotiations with victims, of treating victims like adversaries, and of refusing to cooperate with an investigation by the state attorney general's office by withholding emails and other documents, citing attorney-client privilege.
In a reference to Young's stance on the documents and to his firing, Denhollander tweeted: “Now let's do this independent investigation, with access to ALL information, like [it] should have been done two years ago. We want nothing more than to work with you and help MSU become everything it can and should be.”
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