Savin, Dass in race for county Circuit Court judge
Oakland County voters will see two candidates on their ballot under the nonincumbent race for Oakland County Circuit Court judge.
West Bloomfield resident Lorie Savin, an attorney and Oakland County Circuit Court Family Division judicial officer, will be facing off against Bloomfield Township resident Clarence Dass, an attorney. Both are seeking the seat currently held by Judge James Alexander, whose term expires Dec. 31.
Dass served as assistant prosecuting attorney for the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office from 2012 to 2016, handling cases ranging from child and elder abuse to sexual assault, domestic violence and murder, and rising to the ranks of the county’s special victims section, which requires specially designed training.
He’s also the founder of The Dass Law Firm, which specializes in criminal, family, juvenile and municipal law as well as an adjunct business law professor at Rochester University.
Over the past 17 years, Savin has worked as a judicial officer in Oakland County Circuit Court Family Division. As part of this work, Savin holds thousands of hearings related to child support and parenting time enforcement, examines witnesses, and makes case recommendations.
In addition to her time at the county, Savin has spent time at legal aid, a non-profit organization, a Fortune 100 company, and a small law firm. Her expertise includes family law and judicial ethics
Savin is also the longestserving member of the State Bar of Michigan’s Judicial Ethics Committee, having been appointed in 2009.
The Oakland Press reached out to each candidate with questions pertaining to their candidacy. Responses to some of those questions are detailed below.
To view additional candidate questions and responses for this race, and to access coverage for additional federal and Oakland County election races, visit www.dailytribune.com/news/elections/. The presidential general election is being held on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
OP: What do you see as the biggest challenges facing Oakland County right now and how would you help to remedy and combat those issues?
• Savin: Compared to many other counties across the state, Oakland
County is well-resourced. But even with these resources, we have not done enough to address the problem that too many people end up in our criminal justice system because of untreated mental health problems and substance dependency. Additionally, we are only recently seeing movement within our county to look at solving some matters outside of the legal system like restorative justice programs within school communities and eviction diversion programs, both of which have been successfully implemented in other jurisdictions. I do not proclaim to know nearly enough about how to solve the first problem, but the first step is to identify what resources and programs are already out there making headway to reduce the population of people with mental health problems and substance dependence in our jails and probation departments. Then we would need to assess if there are gaps or insufficient resources to serve the greater population in need. The best place to start to gather this information is from the judges and administrators across the county that run problemsolving courts, but stakeholders from many different groups would need to be part of this comprehensive review. I would personally be interested in and invested in working with Oakland County Youth Assistance, schools, and community organizations to implement programs aimed at helping our youth avoid entering the juvenile justice system. I intend to also make it a priority to serve our youth in a positive proactive manner by having high school interns in chambers and participating in mock trial programs to teach students about the legal system.
• Dass: One of the biggest challenges our justice system faces, both in Oakland County and across the nation, is a lack of confidence in the fairness of the court system. Our judiciary must always be a place where citizens can seek, and find, justice. It must have and deserve the confidence of the people it serves. Unfortunately, I often hear from residents that our system has “failed” them. These sentiments often stem from historic disparities that have created distrust of the courts. To remedy these issues, it is important we improve access to the courts by providing competent counsel and resources to indigent defendants, that we reach out to all communities, both majority and minority, to demystify the working of the courts, and that we ourselves become active in our local area and better learn its problems. A judge hears individual cases, but he or she serves the community as a whole.