Thomas H Howlett

Tom Howlett vigorously pursues cases for people and families harmed by others' misconduct, undertaking both individual lawsuits and class actions.  His primary areas of focus are professional negligence (medical malpractice and legal malpractice), catastrophic injury, civil rights (wrongful convictions), and consumer class actions.

Tom also works hard to serve the profession and public.  Currently, he serves as immediate past president of the Oakland County Bar Association, Michigan's largest voluntary bar association. in 2016, he was recognized by Michigan Lawyers Weekly as one of 30 Leaders in the Law in the State of Michigan. 

Tom has practiced law in Washington, D.C., Michigan and in state and federal courts across the country since 1990. He joined The Googasian Firm, P.C., in 1998, and he serves as our firm's chief operating officer. Tom graduated from Harvard College (A.B. cum laude, 1984) and University of Michigan Law School (J.D., 1990). Prior to law school, he was a reporter for The Dallas Morning News.

From 1990 to 1991, Tom served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Douglas W. Hillman, then-Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan. From 1995 to 1997, Tom and his family lived in the Republic of Palau in the western Pacific, where Tom served as Assistant Attorney General and Counsel to the President for that new island nation. From 2000 to 2005, Tom served as chair of the State Bar of Michigan’s Law and the Media Committee. Since 2005, he has served as a board member of the Oakland County Bar Association, where he currently serves as president and previously  chaired the membership committee. In 2007 and again in 2013, he received the OCBA’s Distinguished Service Award.

In every year since 2006, Tom has been recognized as one of Michigan’s Super Lawyers. He also has received the highest, “AV” peer review rating from LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell. Tom was recently profiled in Motion magazine.

He is a member of the State Bar of Michigan, the District of Columbia Bar (inactive) and the State Bar of Texas (inactive), as well as the American Bar Association, the American Association of Justice and the Michigan Association of Justice.