Butzel Long attorneys Geaneen Arends and Clara DeMatteis Mager named to Crain’s Detroit Business’ 2017 Notable Women Lawyers in Michigan
DETROIT, Mich. – Butzel Long attorneys and shareholders Geaneen M. Arends and Clara DeMatteis Mager have been named to Crain’s Detroit Business’ 2017 Notable Women Lawyers in Michigan. The news appears in the December 11 edition. The women honored in this inaugural report set legal precedents, manage high-profile cases, serve on community boards, win awards and mentor their co-workers.
Geaneen Arends
Based in the firm’s Detroit office, Arends concentrates her practice on corporate transactions and commercial real estate transactions. She assists clients with general business planning, entity formation and maintenance, mergers, acquisitions, private placements, woman-owned/minority-owned business certification and general business contracts.
She also advises business clients on a variety of real estate transactions, including acquisition, development and leasing of multi-family residential, retail, office and industrial properties. She has represented both borrowers and lenders in multi-million-dollar financing transactions.
Prior to joining Butzel Long, Arends was in-house counsel for a real estate investment and property management firm where, among other accomplishments, she led the audit and repositioning of the company’s insurance and risk management program covering a $1Billion real estate portfolio, and she previously practiced in the real estate groups of two prominent Detroit law firms.
In 2016, Arends was elected to serve as a member of the Detroit Educational Television Foundation/Detroit Public Television (DPTV) Board of Trustees. Additionally, she is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Detroit Historical Society, which manages all operations of the Detroit Historical Museum and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum. She also serves on the Steering Committee for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Classical Roots Celebration.
Arends was named to DBusiness magazine’s Top Lawyers 2018 in the areas of Corporate Law, Mergers & Acquisitions Law and Real Estate Law, and was previously recognized in past years by DBusiness in the areas of Corporate Law, Mergers & Acquisitions, Real Estate Law, and NonProfits/Charities Law. She is an alumna of the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce Leadership Detroit, Class XXVII. She also is serving her second term on the Real Property Law Advisory Board for the Institute of Continuing Legal Education (ICLE).
In 2014, Arends was named to the 2014 Class of “Women in the Law” by Michigan Lawyers Weekly.
Arends is a member of the Wolverine Bar Association, Urban Land Institute Michigan, the Detroit Economic Club, for which she also serves on the reception committee, and the Association for Corporate Growth, Detroit, for which she also serves on the ACG Detroit Women's Forum committee.
Arends is a graduate of Michigan State University (B.A., History, 1994) and of Boston College Law School (J.D., 1998). She is admitted to the State Bar of Michigan and the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan.
Clara DeMatteis Mager
As the Immigration Practice Department Leader, Mager has been instrumental in growing the practice.
Mager focuses her practice on business and family immigration issues including all aspects of the international movement of personnel, inbound and outbound work-authorized nonimmigrant (temporary) and immigrant (permanent) status, immigration consequences of mergers, acquisitions, and corporate restructuring, employer sanctions, and immigration law audits.
She is a firm liaison to Lex Mundi, a global association of 160 independent law firms. She has served as Chair and Regional Chair of the Lex Mundi Immigration Committee. She is very active with the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation providing legal services to select “social entrepreneurs.” The Foundation is part of the global social entrepreneur movement for positive social change. She is active in the community working on pro bono immigration matters.
Mager serves on the Board of Directors of the French American Chamber of Commerce (FACC) Michigan Chapter, the Italian American Alliance for Business and Technology, Leonardo International, Inc. and the Great Lakes Chapter of the U.S. Mexico Chamber of Commerce. She also is a member of the Federal Bar Association (previous member of the Leadership Council of the Immigration Committee), State Bar of Michigan (Past Chairperson of the International Law Section and previously held positions of Chair-elect, Secretary, Treasurer, Council Member and Chairperson of the Immigration Committee), Women Lawyers Bar Association and Italian American Bar Association (Board Member and Past President).
Mager also was a Board Member and past Chair of the J.D./L.L.B. Advisory Board, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law/University of Windsor Faculty of Law. She is a graduate of the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce Leadership Detroit XXII Class. Mager is listed in The Best Lawyers in America (Immigration) and Michigan Super Lawyers (Immigration). Mager is a Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent Rated Lawyer.
Mager is a graduate of Wayne State University and of the Detroit College of Law (J.D., cum laude, 1987) where she was a member of Law Review.
