Butzel Attorney Geaneen Arends Named to Michigan Lawyers Weekly’s ‘Michigan’s Go To Lawyers’ Power List

DETROIT, Mich. – Butzel attorney Geaneen M. Arends is among attorneys named to Michigan Lawyers Weekly’s 2024 ‘Michigan Go To Lawyers’ Power List. She is recognized in the category of business transactions. The program honors leading lawyers in a particular field of law nominated by their peers.

Notably, a “Michigan Go To Lawyer” is:

• An expert in his or her field, well-versed in the nuances of the case law, statutes and regulations clients will encounter.
• Experienced, and enjoys a record of success, with many cases and/or transactions that give testimony to the quality advice he or she can provide.
• A lawyer to whom other lawyers make referrals because of his or her expertise and accomplishments.
• A lawyer who can think creatively and identify all options for a client.
• A lawyer you would name when a friend from another state calls and says she has a client who needs some legal help in a given part of our state.

Based in the firm’s Detroit office, Arends is a Butzel Vice President and serves on the firm's Board of Directors. She also serves as Chair of the firm’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Arends is a business attorney with more than 25 years of experience in mergers and acquisitions and commercial real estate transactions.

She assists businesses with entity formation and maintenance, general business contracts, equity and asset sales, and minority-owned business certification. Arends has been lead counsel or significantly involved in domestic and international M&A transactions in a variety of sectors, including the automotive and professional service industries. She also advises businesses on a variety of real estate transactions, including financing, acquisition, disposition, development and leasing of multi-family residential, retail, office and industrial properties throughout the United States.

Arends is an alumna of Leadership Detroit, Class XXVII. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Karmanos Cancer Institute, Detroit PBS, and Detroit Legal News Co. (DTRL) U.S.: OTC and is a member of the Real Property Law Advisory Board for the Institute of Continuing Legal Education. She also is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Detroit Bar Association and its Foundation.

She is a recognized leader with honors including Best Lawyers in America® - Real Estate Law, 2025; Crain's Detroit Business - Notable Black Business Leaders, 2024; 2021 Diversity Business Leader Honoree by Corp! Magazine; Crain's Detroit Business - Notable Executives in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, 2021; Crain's Detroit Business - Notable Woman Attorney, 2017; M&A Advisor - Cross-Border M&A Deal of the Year (over $50MM – $100MM), 2016; Association for Corporate Growth, Detroit - All Star Deal of the Year Over $50 Million, 2015; Michigan Lawyers Weekly - Women in the Law, 2014; and, DBusiness Top Lawyers in Metro Detroit, Nonprofits/Charities Law, 2014; Corporate Law, 2018 & 2022, 2023; Real Estate Law, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2020-2023; Mergers & Acquisitions Law, 2018, 2020.

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.