Astbury Law represents Ann Arbor-area employees in wrongful termination, discrimination, retaliation, and non-compete defense matters. I work with clients throughout Washtenaw County — employees of the University of Michigan, Michigan Medicine, St. Joseph Mercy Health System, and the private-sector employers that cluster in the Ann Arbor research and tech corridor.

I’m Warren Astbury. I’m a Harvard Law graduate (2009) with 15 years of experience and 50+ trials to verdict. I represent Michigan employees — only employees, never employers.

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The Ann Arbor employment law landscape

Ann Arbor has a different employment-case mix than most of Michigan. The economy is dominated by education and healthcare — sectors that collectively employ tens of thousands of workers in Washtenaw County. That workforce produces a distinctive set of employment cases:

Healthcare workers. Michigan Medicine and St. Joseph Mercy Health System together employ thousands of clinicians, nurses, techs, and support staff. Shift-based scheduling and physically demanding work produces many FMLA-leave, ADA-accommodation, and pregnancy-discrimination cases. Healthcare workforces are majority-female, which shapes the case mix substantially.

Academic and research employees. University of Michigan employees work in a unionized, policy-heavy environment with distinctive patterns. Faculty, research scientists, postdocs, staff, and graduate student employees each have their own termination and discrimination pattern histories. UMich also has one of the largest public-sector workforces in the state and is subject to Michigan’s Whistleblowers’ Protection Act (which applies to public bodies and their employees).

Tech and startup sector. The Ann Arbor tech corridor — including Duo Security (Cisco), Llamasoft, Menlo Innovations, and dozens of smaller startups — has produced a rising volume of non-compete defense cases as engineers and product people move between firms. Ann Arbor’s proximity to automotive R&D also produces non-compete disputes involving engineers moving between Big Three suppliers and newer mobility ventures.

Professional employees. Ann Arbor’s concentration of physicians, engineers, attorneys, researchers, and other professional workers maps well to my named target demographic. Professional employees often have the documentation and comparator evidence necessary to build strong discrimination and retaliation cases.

Federal and state court jurisdiction

Employment cases originating in Washtenaw County can be filed in either federal or state court depending on the claims.

Federal: Cases with federal claims (Title VII, ADA, ADEA, FMLA, Section 1981, federal whistleblower statutes) are filed in the Eastern District of Michigan (EDMI), which has a division in Ann Arbor. The Sixth Circuit reviews EDMI decisions.

State: Cases under Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, the Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act, or the Whistleblowers’ Protection Act can be filed in the Washtenaw County Circuit Court.

Common Ann Arbor fact patterns

The cases I see from Ann Arbor tend to cluster in a few categories:

FMLA retaliation for healthcare workers — nurses and techs fired on return from leave for their own or a family member’s medical condition
ADA accommodation denials at academic employers — faculty or staff requesting schedule accommodations or remote work, particularly for mental health, chronic illness, or disability-related needs
Pregnancy discrimination in clinical and teaching settings — demotion or termination after maternity leave or a pregnancy-related accommodation request
Non-compete defense for engineers and tech workers — former employers (often based in Detroit-area automotive or West Coast tech) asserting non-competes against Ann Arbor-based professionals moving to new opportunities
Age discrimination in academic and professional settings — long-tenured employees pushed out after restructurings or hiring-policy shifts

Practice areas I handle in Ann Arbor

Scheduling and in-person meetings

My office is in downtown Detroit, but I regularly meet with Ann Arbor-area clients. Phone and video consultations work for most initial evaluations — we can decide whether in-person is useful once we’ve talked. The 45-minute drive is not an obstacle; for time-sensitive matters (non-compete injunction deadlines, whistleblower statutes of limitations), I’ll come to you.

Astbury Law, PLLC 607 Shelby Street, 7th Floor, #1115 Detroit, MI 48226 814-821-1140 · warren@astburylaw.com

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Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. The information on this page is for general educational purposes and is not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this page or submitting a form.