Michael Cherry built his career on family, juvenile and criminal law in Michigan, then in his late forties turned to long-distance running as a second pursuit. Both pursuits, decades apart in origin, trace back to the same unglamorous habit of showing up and doing the work.
Michael Cherry was forty-eight years old when he decided to start running. He had never raced before and had no background in the sport, which meant that when he lined up for his first events he was already older than many competitive runners are when they retire. He kept going anyway. What began as a late, modest habit grew into something closer to a personal circuit of the world: races completed so far on five continents, with two more still ahead of him. There is something almost contrarian about building a second identity in middle age out of physical endurance, especially after a career already spent inside courtrooms. But that is the shape his life has taken. He is a Michigan attorney known for his work in family, juvenile and criminal law, and he is also, by any reasonable count, a marathoner: fifteen races finished, and no evident plan to stop.
A Late Start, Not a Sudden One
Cherry did not come to running as a young man chasing fitness, or as a college athlete extending an old habit into adulthood. He came to it late, after nearly two decades in legal practice, and the lateness of the start seems to be part of the point. Once he began, he qualified for major races across nearly every continent he attempted, and the fifteen marathons he has completed span five of them, with his sights set on the remaining two. He treats running less as a hobby than as a discipline that mirrors the one he already practiced in law: showing up daily, whether for a run or a workday, and treating consistency as an achievement in itself. His routine includes regular running sessions and, when the workday allows it, time in the gym, a pairing of habits he has kept even as his legal career grew more demanding rather than less.
Night School and a Scholarship
Cherry was born on July 22, 1943, and his early education gave little hint of the marathoner he would later become. In 1967 he earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, and from there his path toward the law began in earnest, though not in the conventional way. Rather than attend law school full time, he enrolled at night, studying cases and statutes after hours while managing daytime responsibilities that a more direct route to a law degree would not have allowed. The arrangement demanded a kind of stamina long before marathons entered his life: years of study compressed into evenings, sustained without the structure of a traditional academic schedule. Before he graduated, he was awarded the Outstanding Scholarship Award, recognition of an academic record built in the margins of an already full life. In 1974 he received a J.D. from the Detroit College of Law, completing a seven-year stretch from undergraduate degree to law degree that ran almost entirely through night classes.
From Riley and Roumell to a Practice of His Own
Cherry began his legal career at the law firm of Riley and Roumell, where he built the foundation of his practice and developed a reputation for diligence with clients. From there he moved to Lacey and Jones, where his focus shifted toward workers compensation defense, a pivot that demonstrated an ability to move across different areas of law rather than settle into a single specialty. In 1978 he was appointed a special assistant attorney general, a role that put him on a broader stage within the Michigan legal system and extended his work beyond individual clients to the interests of the state itself. It was not until 1992 that he made the move that would define the rest of his career: he left institutional practice behind and opened an independent private practice, betting on his own name and judgment rather than the infrastructure of a firm. That practice has continued in the years since, built around the same three areas of law that anchored his career from early on: family, juvenile and criminal matters.
A Voice on Criminal Justice Reform
His legal work has extended beyond individual cases into broader questions about how the justice system in Michigan functions, and he has become known in Grosse Pointe as someone with informed views on the subject. Central to his position is the reduction of recidivism: he argues that a justice system focused only on punishment, without a serious effort at rehabilitation and reintegration, is not doing its full job. He has also spoken to the importance of equity within the system, pointing to how poverty, systemic racism and inequality compound one another and cannot be separated from any honest conversation about reform. Some of his concerns are more practical than philosophical. He has pointed to overcrowded prisons as a strain on inmates, staff and state resources alike, and to case backlogs that delay outcomes for victims and defendants in equal measure. He has also been a proponent of non-custodial alternatives to incarceration, arguing that they offer a better path toward rehabilitation while easing pressure on a prison system that is already stretched thin.
What Success Came to Mean
Early in his career, Cherry measured success the way many young attorneys do: in financial terms, shaped by the ambitions of someone newly out of a demanding course of training. That calculus shifted over time. As his practice matured, he came to see success less as a number and more as a form of freedom, namely the freedom to make time for the things he cared about outside the law, chiefly travel and marathon running. It also came to include the ability to help others and to contribute to his community in ways that had nothing to do with billable hours. In his own account, success settled into something closer to a feeling of well-being: not simply the accumulation of achievements, but an internal sense of fulfillment that those achievements were meant to produce in the first place. He describes it as something that reshapes a broader outlook on life, building self-esteem, a sense of accomplishment and, ultimately, a kind of contentment that outlasts any single case or race.
Advice for the Next Generation of Attorneys
His approach to mentoring younger attorneys tracks closely with the principles that have guided his own career. He places honesty first, describing it as non-negotiable in a profession built on trust between client and attorney, and he points to his own reliance on that honesty when navigating difficult cases. He also emphasizes the value of a professional network, framing it not as a tool for individual advancement but as a way for attorneys to grow together and share knowledge across the profession. Diligent research, in his account, sits at the actual center of legal work: he advocates for leaving no stone unturned on behalf of a client, treating thorough preparation as both a professional obligation and a form of respect. That respect, finally, extends to how attorneys treat the people they represent. He stresses that the concerns of every client deserve to be taken seriously, and that attorneys who treat clients accordingly do more than win cases: they build the kind of trust that sustains a career over decades.
The Miles Still Ahead for Michael Cherry
Cherry is not finished with either pursuit. Two continents remain on his list of marathon destinations, and nothing in his history suggests he intends to leave them unchecked. His independent practice continues to handle the same family, juvenile and criminal matters that have defined his legal career, alongside the reform-minded advocacy that has made him a known voice on the justice system in Michigan. What ties the two pursuits together is not simply the discipline each requires, but a shared conviction that runs through both: that meaningful outcomes come from persistence applied over years, not from any single dramatic moment. Whatever races remain on his list, and whatever cases remain on his docket, the pattern he has already set, of showing up, doing the diligent work and redefining what success means along the way, seems unlikely to change.
