Julie I. Fershtman
Shareholder
Foster Swift Collins & Smith PC
A practitioner for 33 years, Julie Fershtman represents clients in a broad range of business, personal injury, contract, and insurance coverage litigation pertaining to several industries. Her clients range from major insurance companies and businesses to individuals. Her work includes trials, arbitrations/ADR and appeals. Julie serves on the firm's Executive Committee as Vice President of the Southeast offices.
Additionally, she is widely considered one of the nation's leading practitioners in equine law. She has handled matters for a national clientele involving contract disputes, fraud, association liability, partnership disputes, and personal injury liability. She has also helped draft and advocate for legislation impacting the industry.
She has achieved numerous courtroom victories and successfully tried cases before juries in four states. Clients have retained her to serve as pro hac vice (specially admitted out-of-state) counsel in state and federal courts in Florida, Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Illinois, Arizona, Connecticut, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
In addition to her law practice, Julie is active in bar associations. She was the 77th President of the State Bar of Michigan, a 45,000-member mandatory bar, and was only the fifth woman in the bar’s history to be elected to this role. The State Bar recently selected her to serve on the ABA House of Delegates, representing Michigan. She is well-known to judges and lawyers across Michigan through her bar leadership and her co-chair work in 2015 and 2016 for the State Bar of Michigan’s 21st Century Practice Task Force. She is a trustee of the Michigan State Bar Foundation, Director of the Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society and a fellow of the American, Michigan, Oakland County and Detroit bar foundations. Fellow membership is typically reserved to approximately 1 percent of lawyers.
A frequent author on legal issues, she has written more than 400 published articles, six ABA law journal articles (co-authored), four books, and two blogs. The ABA published her latest book in 2019. A highly sought-after national speaker in 29 states, her topics cover issues involving law, liability, agribusiness, insurance, equine law, and risk management. Her speaking engagements include a law school commencement address, panels at three ABA Annual Meetings, Property & Liability Resource Bureau National Claims Conferences in three states, as well as conferences of the State Bar of Michigan, New York State Bar Association and Washington State Bar Association.
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