Zana Tomich
Zana Tomich is a Detroit business attorney who serves as outside general counsel for small to midsize businesses in the creative, food and beverage, financial services, and other industries in Michigan. She has been advising entrepreneurs as a lawyer for more than 15 years, but her history with small businesses dates back even farther. From a young age, she worked at her family’s Westland restaurant, learning lessons that inform her approach to client service today—one that emphasizes responsiveness, listening, and efficiency.
While her law school degree means she was trained to think like a lawyer, her immersion in her family’s business over the last four decades allows her to understand the unique challenges faced by the business owners she serves as legal counsel.
Zana helps her business clients in various capacities, including serving in the role of fractional general counsel. As a fractional general counsel, Zana offers her clients the benefits of a general counsel—including, most importantly, having a trusted advisor deeply familiar with their business—without the burden of staffing a full-time attorney. More information is available at dtbusinesslaw.com.
Through her role as fractional general counsel, which enables her to proactively advise clients, Zana provides counsel on a range of legal issues, including:
• business formation, including organizational documents such as shareholder agreements
• employment issues
• securing funding
• negotiation of contracts, including leases and vendor agreements
• acquisitions and mergers
• selling or otherwise disposing of assets
• succession planning
Attentiveness, a deep understanding of her client’s business, and a pragmatic approach allow her to provide value in each engagement, and help her clients to spot and address issues before they turn into problems. This allows her clients to focus on their work, and not their legal challenges.
Zana’s work has earned her recognition as a Michigan Lawyers Weekly Go-To Lawyer – Business, one of Michigan’s Top Women Attorneys, and she has been named a Super Lawyers Rising Star and a Michigan Lawyers Weekly Up & Coming Lawyer.
She is a graduate of Wayne State University Law School (J.D., cum laude) and the University of Michigan (B.A., with distinction). She is a proud graduate of Leadership Detroit XXXII, a selective leadership program aimed at identifying future leaders of the city, and serves on the Henry Ford Hospice SandCastles Counsel of Advisors and the Detroit Athletic Club Community Outreach Committee. She is also a member of the American Bar Association.
The attentiveness, deep understanding of clients’ businesses and pragmatic approach Zana brings to every new collaboration frequently allows her clients to avoid issues altogether. Most importantly, it frees them to focus on their creative work.
For these clients and others, Zana also brings particular experience in banking and real estate matters. She frequently works with lenders during the loan origination process; in achieving workouts, foreclosures, and short sales; and in negotiating forbearance agreements. She also assists clients in all aspects of real estate transactions, including the financing, development, sale and leasing of commercial properties. Her expertise has been featured in publications such as AdWeek (and Michigan Banker).
Zana graduated from Wayne State University Law School (J.D., cum laude) and the University of Michigan (B.A., with distinction). She is a proud graduate of Leadership Detroit XXXII, a selective leadership program aimed at identifying future leaders of the city.
Zana serves on the Henry Ford Hospice SandCastles Counsel of Advisors and the Detroit Athletic Club Community Outreach Committee. She is also a member of the American Bar Association.
Zana lives in Beverly Hills, Michigan with her husband and two daughters. A self-described foodie, in her downtime, Zana enjoys exploring Detroit’s culinary scene, practicing Pilates, and trying to master her serve in tennis.
Professional Activity:
- Named one of 20 Up & Coming Lawyers by Michigan Lawyers Weekly in 2011.
- Named a Rising Star by Michigan Super Lawyers from 2010 - 2013.
- Top Women Attorneys in Michigan 2014, Hour Detroit.
- Graduate of Leadership Detroit XXXII.
- Profiled in Detroit Legal News in April 2020.
- State Bar of Michigan
- American Bar Association
- Risk Management Association
- Turnaround Management Association
- Advisory Council of Henry Ford Health System Hospice and SandCastles
- Leadership Detroit Class of XXXII (2010-2011)
- Worked directly with consumer loss mitigation VP of $800 million asset size community bank to clear hundreds of defaulted loans obtained during FDIC acquisition through litigation, foreclosure and workout processes.
- Assisted in employing best practices, integrated through weekly meetings, to guide community banks through state and federal regulations in aftermath of the Great Recession.
- Represented purchaser in acquisition of assets of 60 year-old Michigan creative and design powerhouse.
- Successfully represented seller in disposition of real property and business in economically depressed Monroe County, Michigan.
- Serves as local counsel to out of state real estate developer in acquisition and disposition of real estate investment properties.
- Serves as outside general counsel to a Michigan community bank reviewing key agreements to ensure compliance with regulatory guidelines.
- Accomplished complex merger of two Unitarian churches.
- Serves as outside General Counsel to a company specializing in e-commerce website with $10 Million annual revenues.
- Serves as local counsel to several California denominational credit unions, achieving workouts of sensitive loans to churches.
- Assisted several purchasers in the acquisition of dental practice assets and billings, navigated the purchase of accounts receivable and insurance proceeds to successful resolution.
