Sherrie Farrell Selected to Michigan Lawyers Weekly’s 2023 Influential Women of Law List

Dykema, a leading national law firm, is proud to announce that Sherrie Farrell was selected to Michigan Lawyer’s Weekly’s 2023 “Influential Women of Law” list. Farrell will be honored at an awards luncheon and profiled in a special supplement of Michigan Lawyers Weekly in September.

According to the publication, this program is dedicated to honoring women attorneys and judges for their excellent work on behalf of the justice system and for their clients, their commitment to their communities, and their service to the profession. “These honorees are inspiring and accomplished leaders, serve as mentors to others, and contribute significant time and effort to volunteerism and/or pro bono initiatives.”

Farrell serves as Dykema’s Chief Diversity Officer, Managing Member of the firm’s Detroit office, and Co-Chair of its Mansfield Task Force. Throughout her career, she has worked on issues related to diversity and inclusion in the legal profession, from being appointed to the firm’s first diversity committee in 1999, to writing the firm’s first strategic plan for diversity and inclusion. She is recognized both locally and nationally as a thought leader in diversifying the legal profession.

In her practice, Farrell has served as a trusted business advisor for 25 years, providing counseling and litigation advice to a wide array of businesses and organizations. She acts as lead counsel in various commercial matters including partnership disputes, lease disputes, breach of contract, and bankruptcy disputes. Farrell has provided counsel on litigation risk management, discovery management, real estate project management for real estate interests, and public policy and litigation issues involving local governments.

Farrell has significant experience serving as a National Coordinating Counsel. She serves as National Discovery Counsel for a Fortune 25 manufacturer in asbestos and other toxic tort litigation. Farrell also had the primary responsibility to develop and defend Fortune 25 corporate fact and expert witnesses in national tort litigation. She also has represented manufacturers, closely held corporations, auto suppliers, and construction companies in both litigated and non-litigated commercial matters.

In her corporate bankruptcy and business restructuring practice, Farrell’s representation includes global automotive suppliers in customer, vendor, and supplier Chapter 11 bankruptcies; creditors in Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy; a state airport authority; construction companies; and troubled suppliers. She also has represented other interested parties including staffing corporations, financial institutions, and other regional and national businesses in commercial and bankruptcy-related litigation, preferences, creditors’ rights matters, out-of-court restructurings, loan workouts, and issues involving the UCC.

Farrell also previously served as the head of Dykema’s first Cybersecurity group. Her extensive experience in the data security area includes drafting data security plans for a board of directors of an insurance company; managing data breaches and incidents for, among others, health company, insurance company, and auto manufacturing supplier. She has drafted data security policies for clients including enterprise-wide data security plans, incident response plans and computer and internet access policies. In addition to authoring several articles on this topic, she’s also presented to a local corporate secretaries organization, an auto manufacturer and was featured on a corporate counsel panel focused on cybersecurity.

Outside of her practice and leadership responsibilities with Dykema, Farrell’s community involvement includes being a board member for the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion, Gift of Life-Michigan, Minority Organ Tissue Transplant Education Program, and the Citizens Research Council. She is also a mentor for the Just The Beginnings Foundation and the Street Law Program.

Farrell has been heavily involved in several bar associations and legal professional societies, including serving as President of both the Women’s Lawyers Association of Michigan and the Wolverine Bar Association, a former member of the Board of Directors for the Legal Aid and Defender Association, and as a Member of the State Bar of Michigan’s inaugural Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee. She was just elected Co-Chair of the African American Partners’ Collaborative. She is also involved in the African-American Managing Partners and General Counsel Network.

Throughout her distinguished career, Farrell has received numerous professional accolades. Last year, she was named to Savoy magazine’s Most Influential Black Lawyers list. She’s also received the D. Augustus Straker Bar Association Trailblazer Award, was named to Lawyers of Color’s “Nation’s Best List,” earned the Wolverine Bar Association President’s Award for the promotion of diversity in the legal profession, was awarded the Robert Millender Visionary Award from the Black Law Students’ Association at Michigan State College of Law, was named as one of Michigan Chronicle’s Women of Excellence, and named Managing Partner of the Year by the African-American Managing Partners and General Counsel Network.

Farrell earned a J.D., cum laude, from the Detroit College of Law and a B.A. from Wayne State University.