Michael C. Fayz has decades of civil rights experience, from grassroots to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Fayz was born in Dearborn, grew up in the community, and graduated from Crestwood High School. During his undergraduate days at Wayne State University, Mr. Fayz was active in the community, including as a member of the Executive Board of ACCESS. Mr. Fayz earned his interdisciplinary Ph.B. degree in 1981 from Monteith College at Wayne State. Mr. Fayz later earned his business degree Central Michigan University. He then returned to Midtown and graduated magna cum laude in 1991 from Wayne State University Law School.
During law school, Mr. Fayz clerked at well-regarded civil rights firms in Detroit, and assisted Law Professor William Burnham on “Section 1983” litigation that reached the U.S. Supreme Court in Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989). Mr. Fayz later co-authored an article with Professor Burnham on the Will case (The State as a “Non-Person”: Some Comments on the Will Case and Some Suggestions for the Future, 70 Oregon Law Review 301 (1991)). Mr. Fayz has written and published extensively on subjects of constitutional law and civil rights, as well as on employment law and civil procedure.
After law school, Mr. Fayz served for two years as a Law Clerk to Federal District Court Judge Avern Cohn. As a federal law clerk, Mr. Fayz had a front row seat to the adjudication of a wide range of constitutional and civil rights cases, including Voting Rights Act litigation after the 1990 Census.
Mr. Fayz went into private practice as a trial lawyer at Miller Canfield Paddock and Stone (1993-2011), where he continued to focus on federal practice and constitutional litigation. During his 18 years at Miller Canfield, Mr. Fayz litigated a variety of constitutional issues, including constitutional challenges to Michigan’s Voter ID law and the affirmative action ban in Michigan’s “Proposal 2.”
After law school, Mr. Fayz began teaching at the Wayne State University school of Business Administration (now the Mike Ilitch School of Business). He took a hiatus from teaching to meet the travel demands of his practice, but returned to teaching “Business Law & Ethics” in the fall semester of 2013.