Robert E. Sullivan Jr.

Since 1984, Robert E. Sullivan, Jr. has been a litigator in state and federal courtrooms throughout Michigan. He has successfully represented a wide variety of high-profile clients, including businesses, professionals and municipalities. He has specialized in the areas of professional liability defense (including architectural, engineering, and medical), construction, real estate, municipal liability, zoning and city planning, premises liability, product liability, environmental, automobile negligence and no-fault, worker’s compensation and other areas.

He currently serves as General Counsel and Director of Career Development at the International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit. For 23 years, he was employed by the law firm of Sullivan, Sullivan, Ranger & Ward, which was founded in 1951 and ranked among Michigan’s oldest and largest law firms. He was a Partner and Shareholder in the firm since 1992 and worked successfully in specialty practice teams, as a member of a team to develop an attorney manual with standardized practices and procedures, and mentored many younger attorneys to train them in their specialties.

Mr. Sullivan is well respected in the legal profession and has been regularly invited by legal educational services to present lectures on various issues. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning and at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Macomb Community College. For several years, Mr. Sullivan has served as a court appointed mediator and case evaluator for the Wayne County Circuit Court (Third Judicial Circuit). He also serves on a committee of the Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association that interviews and rates candidates for judicial office.

Paralleling his legal career, Mr. Sullivan also has an extensive interest and background in the field of city planning, which he developed as a sixth-generation and native resident of the City of Detroit. In addition to obtaining a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan, Mr. Sullivan worked as a planner in the Planning Department of Johnson, Johnson & Roy, in Ann Arbor, at a time when it was a subsidiary of the architectural firm of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls. He then worked as a transportation planner in the Planning Department of the Southeastern Michigan Transportation Authority (SEMTA), which at the time operated an extensive bus and commuter train system in the Metro Detroit area and was in the process of planning a Woodward Avenue subway.

Mr. Sullivan was appointed unanimously by the Detroit City Council to the City Planning Commission, where his fellow commissioners elected him to the position of Vice-Chairperson. While on the City Planning Commission, he worked with neighborhood organizations, businesses, government agencies and developers, while performing architectural and planning reviews for approximately three billion dollars of development plans. He also participated in the creation of a new master plan for Detroit and made recommendations for changes to the zoning map and code.

Mr. Sullivan is a Charter Member of the American Planning Association and has been a certified city planner by the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) since 1985. He is also a past member of the American Institute of Architects (professional affiliate).

 Mr. Sullivan also has a deep interest in the history of The City of Detroit. He has been actively involved with the Detroit Historical Society, where he participated on a committee that authored publications to commemorate Detroit’s 300th birthday, in 2001. He similarly served as a member of the History Advisors’ Committee of the Detroit Tricentennial Commission (Detroit 300).