A sidebar with Robert MacDonald.

Byline: Thomas Franz

Flint attorney Robert J. MacDonald of MacDonald & MacDonald PLLC recently began his one-year term as the 67th president of the Michigan Association for Justice (MAJ).

MacDonald is a third-generation lawyer as he and other members of his family have specialized in workers' compensation cases for more than 80 years.

He spoke with Michigan Lawyers Weekly to discuss his new role with MAJ and how his family has influenced his career.

Why did you decide to take on leadership positions within MAJ?

Most of my practice over the years has been handling workers' compensation cases as well as Social Security. I suppose the need for the workers' comp attorneys to organize and try to deal with problems in the law and the administration of justice caused me to become more involved in MAJ. I became chair of the workers' comp committee. We had amendments to the workers' comp statute in 2011, and in dealing with those, we needed to step up together as a group to try and deal with that.

I was eventually asked to become an officer with MAJ and now I'm president.

How have you seen MAJ change during your 20 years of membership?

The justice system has been under attack through tort reform over the last 30 years, so that's been a challenge for people representing workers, consumers, injury victims and accident survivors. People have been dealing with those changes and trying to react to them for a long time. People have persevered through those problems and will continue to do so.

What are your goals to accomplish as MAJ president?

Michigan is working on restoring some access to justice to all of these workers, consumers and accident survivors, and we're working to change law with the Legislature and to advocate for justices that want there to be access to the jury system. I believe Michigan is becoming a fairer place for the little guy, and we're in a better place than we were in 10 years ago. I hope to continue to balance the scales against more powerful entities like corporations and other institutions.

We have a new no-fault law that was rushed and parts were poorly drafted. The law will have devastating effects on the catastrophically injured, which I don't think was fully appreciated by those who were rushing it through. We're working on softening the edges of that new law, so that's a big goal.

We are working on workers' comp reforms in Michigan. Injured workers historically have received roughly two-thirds of their pay if they've not...