Patrick W. Michael

Biography

Patrick is a legal strategist and business project manager with experience advising newly emerging companies to mature billion dollar ventures. When he begins working with a business, he immerses himself in the business operations so he may effectively partner with the company. This approach provides him with a broad operational view enabling him to anticipate strategic legal challenges and provide the most effective advice to the company.

He focuses his practice on the resolution of commercial disputes. He has experience with a variety of contract and commercial litigation, including supplier and customer disputes, financial work-outs and non-competition disputes. He has first-chaired and managed significant business litigation matters involving multi-million dollar disputes. He has managed dealership work-outs for auto manufacturing finance companies involving multi-million dollar recoveries. Patrick has significant experience preparing cases for emergency hearings.

He serves as general counsel for outside businesses in which he is the go-to person for issues, including business risk analysis and strategy, executive and customer contracts and a variety of issues related to product sales. He has worked with a number of high-level executives in various industries, including a national carpet cleaning franchiser, a national pharmacy company and even the inventor of the aluminum baseball bat, placing a premium on learning each client’s industry in order to tailor his advice to fit their needs

In addition, Patrick works with a team of Dinsmore lawyers who specialize in developing new business ventures. This group provides start-ups and entrepreneurs with a solid legal foundation for business development and growth.

Patrick provides compliance review for a number of small-to-medium-sized companies, reviewing and developing their record retention and destruction policies. He works closely with in-house counsel and the technical staff to evaluate and develop new business strategies to streamline the storage and retrieval process, providing a proactive approach to compliance with evolving local, state and federal laws and regulations.

Education

  • Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville  (J.D., 1987)
  • Bellarmine College  (M.B.A., 1984)
  • University of Illinois  (M.F.A., 1979)
    • Directing
  • University of Illinois  (B.F.A., 1977)
    • Acting

Bar Admissions

  • Kentucky

Court Admissions

  • U.S. Supreme Court
  • Federal Circuit Court of Appeals
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
  • U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois
  • U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky
  • U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky
  • U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan
  • U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio

Affiliations/Memberships

  • Kentucky Bar Association
  • Louisville Bar Association
  • Leadership Louisville, Class of 2000
    • Bingham Fellows (2007)
    • Membership Action Council (2009)

Distinctions

  • Peer Review Rated AV in Martindale-Hubbell
  • Kentucky Super Lawyers® 
    • For Business Litigation (2021)
  • Distinguished Service Award from the Louisville Bar Association (2012)
  • "Top Lawyers” by Louisville Magazine (2013, 2016)