**Biographical Profile**

**Maura Corrigan**

Governor Rick Snyder named Maura D. Corrigan director of the Michigan Department of Human Services on January 6, 2011.  Corrigan previously served as a judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals and justice of the Supreme Court for 19 years.  Maura Corrigan served on the Michigan Supreme Court beginning in 1999, including four years from 2001 – 2005, as Chief Justice.

She graduated from Marygrove College and the University of Detroit-Mercy School of Law.  She then became a law clerk to Michigan Court of Appeals Judge John Gillis, a Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor, and an Assistant United States Attorney in Detroit.  She was first appointed the Chief of Appeals and later, Chief Assistant United States Attorney, the first woman to hold that position.  Director Corrigan became a partner at the Detroit law firm of Plunkett & Cooney in 1989.  From 1992 to 1998, she served on the Michigan Court of Appeals, the last two years as Chief Judge.

Director Corrigan participates in numerous community and professional activities. She was chosen as commissioner of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care and as vice president of the Conference of Chief Justices.  She was appointed to the Michigan Law Revision Commission, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Attorney Advisory Committee, and the Rules Committee of the U.S. District Court in Detroit.  She served on the Executive Board of the Michigan Judges Association and the Advisory Board of the Center for Law and Organizational Economics at the University of Kansas.  She also volunteered on the boards of Boysville (now Holy Cross) and Vista Maria.  She has been president of the Incorporated Society of Irish American Lawyers, the Federal Bar Association in Detroit, and the MSU Inns of Court.

Director Corrigan has won numerous awards including: Casey Family Programs Excellence in Leadership (2013); Michigan Women’s Foundation Lifetime Achievement Trillium Award (2013); Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association Dennis W. Archer Public Service Award (2012); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Adoption Excellence Award (2011); and Women Officials Network Wonder Woman Award (2011).

Director Corrigan holds honorary doctorates from seven Michigan colleges and universities:  Eastern Michigan, Michigan State, Northern Michigan, University of Detroit-Mercy, Wayne State, Marygrove College, and Schoolcraft College.  She has been chosen as the outstanding alumna of UD-Mercy Law School and Marygrove College.  She has coauthored a treatise on civil procedure and has published many articles in professional journals and books, including the Ave Maria Law Review, Wayne Law Review, University of Toledo Law Review, NYU Law Review and the Texas Review of Law and Politics.  She has taught as an adjunct professor at Wayne State University Law School and at programs for the Michigan Judicial Institute, the American Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association, and the Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute.

Director Corrigan is the widow of the late Wayne State University Distinguished Professor of Law Joseph D. Grano and is the mother of Megan and Daniel Grano.  Daniel is an assistant attorney general.  His wife Marianne is a Presbyterian minister in Rochester Hills.  Megan is a veteran of Second City, Chicago and LA, an actress and comedy writer.  Her husband Michael Canale is a theater manager and screenwriter.  Corrigan is the happy grandmother of Diana Mae Grano, born in January 2010, and Anthony Joseph Canale, born in August 2012.  

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