Deanna Swisher

Deanna Swisher’s practice focuses on the areas of commercial and employment litigation and her service as general counsel to fashion designers. Deanna leads Fosterfashion, the firm’s fashion and design law team.

She also handles alternative dispute resolution, primarily through service as an arbitrator as well as representing clients in a variety of real estate, mortgage, collection and creditor rights matters. She is a member of the firm’s Banking, Finance and Real Estate Practice Group, Employment Law, S.E.E.D. and Agricultural Law Group.

Deanna handles a broad range of commercial litigation matters including breach of contract litigation, defending contract and statutory claims arising from the mortgagee/mortgagor relationship, resolving real property easement, adverse possession, boundary and title disputes, enforcing the rights of parties to secured transactions, filing and defending actions for conversion, breach of fiduciary duty, tortious interference with contract as well as other business torts.

Deanna also drafts and negotiates licensing agreements, commission agreements, employment and independent contractor agreements and advises clients regarding the misclassification of employees.

When out-of-court efforts and administrative proceedings fail to resolve disputes, she defends employers in state and federal courts in breach of contract discrimination and retaliation actions, and she files suits to enjoin violations of, covenants not-to-compete provisions and sales commission agreements.

Prior to joining Foster, Swift, Deanna clerked for Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Carolyn Stell and worked for Varnum, Riddering, Schmidt & Howlet.

Admitted to practice in Michigan, she is a member of the Federal Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the State Bar of Michigan and the Ingham County Bar Association. Deanna is a member of the Fellows of the Michigan State Bar Foundation, and she is a former member of the State Bar of Michigan’s Client Protection Fund Committee and the Indiana University Law Alumni Board. In 2017, Deanna was admitted to the Texas Bar to practice law there.

Locally, Deanna volunteers her time to a variety of Lansing and Detroit area endeavors that support start-up fashion and design businesses, artists and a wide variety of “makers.” She also volunteers her time to The Friends of Reutter Park and to Operation Santa, a program that provides Christmas gifts to children of low-income families. She has served as the President of the Board of Trustees of Michigan Montessori Internationale, Inc., and she is a founding member of the Lansing Chapter of Inforum and AthenaWIN.

Born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Deanna was a summa cum laude graduate of Ball State University, obtaining degrees in Political Science and the Honors College. She received her legal education and juris doctorate from Indiana University in 1985. She continued her legal education at Fordham Law, in 2014, attending its fashion law intensive summer program.