Butzel Attorney Geaneen Arends Named to Crain’s Detroit Business’ 2024 Notable Black Business Leaders

Based in the firm’s Detroit office, Arends is a Butzel Vice President and serves on the firm’s Board of Directors. She also serves as Chair of the firm’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. She concentrates her practice on mergers and acquisitions, business transactions and commercial real estate.

She assists clients with general business planning, entity formation and maintenance, mergers, acquisitions, commercial lending, woman-owned/minority-owned /disadvantaged business certification, risk management issues and general business contracts.

Arends also has advised clients on a variety of real estate transactions, including acquisition, disposition, development and leasing of multi-family residential, retail, office and industrial properties throughout the United States. She has represented both borrowers and lenders in multi-million-dollar real estate financing transactions.

She is an alumna of Leadership Detroit, Class XXVII. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Karmanos Cancer Institute, Detroit PBS, and Detroit Legal News Co. (DTRL) U.S.: OTC and is a member of the Real Property Law Advisory Board for the Institute of Continuing Legal Education. She also is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Detroit Bar Association.

Arends is a recognized leader with honors including Best Lawyers in America® – Real Estate Law, 2025; 2021 Diversity Business Leader Honoree by Corp! Magazine; Crain’s Detroit Business – Notable Executives in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, 2021; Crain’s Detroit Business – Notable Woman Attorney, 2017; M&A Advisor – Cross-Border M&A Deal of the Year (over $50MM – $100MM), 2016; Association for Corporate Growth, Detroit – All Star Deal of the Year Over $50 Million, 2015; Michigan Lawyers Weekly – Women in the Law, 2014; and, DBusiness Top Lawyers in Metro Detroit, Nonprofits/Charities Law, 2014; Corporate Law, 2018 & 2022, 2023; Real Estate Law, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2020-2023; Mergers & Acquisitions Law, 2018, 2020.

Arends is a graduate of Michigan State University (B.A., History, 1994) and of Boston College Law School (J.D., 1998). She is admitted to the State Bar of Michigan and the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan.

About Butzel

Butzel is one of the leading law firms in Michigan and the United States. It was founded in Detroit in 1854 and has provided trusted client service for 170 years. Butzel’s full-service law offices are located in Ann Arbor, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Troy and Southwest, Mich.; New York, NY; and, Washington, D.C., as well as global alliance offices. Butzel is an active member of Lex Mundi, a global association of 160 independent law firms. Learn more by visiting www.butzel.com or follow Butzel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/butzel_long