Women Who Move Detroit – 2023 – Special Section
JOUMANA KAYROUZ
Owner
LOCATION:
The Law Offices of Joumana Kayrouz
24370 Northwestern Hwy.
Southfield, MI 48075
248-557-3645
yourrights.com
Joumana Kayrouz is multilingual (she speaks four languages), an Ivy League graduate (she graduated from Yale University in 1992), was admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court (she was sworn in by U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts in Washington, D.C., in 2019), has the largest outdoor media advertising campaign contract in Michigan’s history to date (she’s been featured on more than 750 buses, not including billboards), and met the pope in 2015 (a “living saint,” she says). Considering all those achievements, it’s hard to believe that back in 1986 she was a 22-year-old immigrant from Beirut, Lebanon, with $1,000 in her pocket and limited English skills.
It was “blind faith, sheer hard work, an ardent desire to keep learning, and a willingness to be made fun of, discredited, marginalized, and humbled,” she says, that got her through. Quoting Booker T. Washington, she says, “Character, not circumstances, makes the man.”
Kayrouz’s other favorite quote, also from Booker T. Washington, is “The happiest people are those who do the most for others.” Several years ago, she established a nonprofit organization and has been engaged in numerous charitable endeavors here and abroad (her firm’s website provides a list of those projects). Kayrouz, who also has more than 25 years of radio experience, hosts a daily one-hour radio podcast to educate listeners about the law, and she’s been a pioneer in that field.
“To give a piece of legal advice that can positively change somebody’s life is rewarding and humbling,” she says.
