Our Team

Marilyn Mullane

Attorney/Executive Director

Marilyn Mullane has been the Director of Michigan Legal Services since 2000. Under her leadership, the agency has provided impact-oriented legal services focused in the Detroit metropolitan region for 20 years. She has specialized in housing and community development law for the past 30 years, also bringing to this work, experience with litigation concerning access to utilities, public benefits, transportation, health and public mental health care for low income persons and communities. She was a founding board member of Community Legal Resources, the popular pro bono transactional legal program of Michigan Community Resources and has served as counsel to several nonprofit community organizations in Detroit. She was also a founding board member for the Maurice and Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, the Cass Corridor Neighborhood Development Corporation and The Heat Warmth Fund (THAW). She has also served on the boards of the United Community Housing Coalition, Bridging Communities and the Public Housing Advisory Board of the National Center for Community Change.

Before her work at Michigan Legal Services began in 1983, Mullane specialized in eviction defense at Detroit’s Legal Aid and Defender Association and was a staff attorney engaged in a general poverty law practice at Wayne County Neighborhood Legal Services. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, attended graduate school at Columbia University and received her law degree from Wayne State University. She was the 2015 recipient of the Michigan State Bar Foundation’s Access to Justice Award.

Deborah Choly

Staff Attorney

Deborah Choly has been an attorney for over 35 years. She received a BA from the University of Michigan and a JD from Wayne State University School of Law. She maintained a general solo practice for many years, including several years as a part time contractor with United Community Housing Coalition, representing tenants in landlord-tenant court. She joined with Michigan Legal Services in 1989 as counsel in the Wayne County Jail inmates’ conditions case in Wayne County Circuit Court. She became a full time employee of MLS in 2007, where she continues her role in the Jail case, as well as representing clients in family court, landlord-tenant court, and probate court as part of the Tax Foreclosure Prevention program. She is married and has three adult children (and a wonderful daughter-in-law). She is active in the National Lawyers Guild. Her hobbies are drinking coffee, reading, and complaining.

Matt Kroeger

Staff Attorney

Matt Kroeger joined Michigan Legal Services in 2015 and since then has worked for hundreds of clients assisting with landlord-tenant court cases and counselling clients facing tax foreclosure issues. Matthew received his B.A in Political Theory & Constitutional Democracy and International Relations from Michigan State University in 2011, and J.D from Michigan State University College of Law in 2014.

Anthony Sartorio

Staff Attorney

Anthony Sartorio has worked in the field of public interest law since he was first licensed to practice in the State of Louisiana in 2009. He has spent the majority of that time representing residents who have faced unjust and unnecessary foreclosures and evictions. He is a graduate of Boston College (English and Philosophy) and Tulane University Law School.

Vanessa Fluker

Contract Attorney

Ms. Fluker is a licensed attorney practicing in Michigan. She practices in State and Federal Courts in Michigan, and is licensed up through the U.S. Supreme. Currently, Ms. Fluker is active in fighting against predatory mortgage lending on behalf of consumers and the community by providing legal advice and representation against banks and lenders. Her efforts in and out of court have saved numerous homes. Ms. Fluker was given the honor of Housing Advocate of the Year for 2009, by the United Housing Coalition and received the Harriet Tubman Award in 2010 for her tireless efforts to fight against foreclosure, eviction and predatory lending. In April 2011, Ms. Fluker received the Golden Gavel Award from the Wolverine Bar Association for her assisting low income people and senior citizens facing foreclosure in the community. In September 2011, Ms. Fluker received the Frank Kelly Justice Award from the Consumer Section of the State Bar of Michigan. Ms. Fluker was presented the James Sheehan Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2012, for her work with low-income, seniors and the disabled facing foreclosure.

Most recently, Ms. Fluker has been selected by the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights, for the 2013 Community Activist for her foreclosure work in the community. Ms. Fluker’s work has been nationally recognized and she was invited to testify before the U.S. Congress Judiciary Committee on December 15, 2010, on foreclosure issues and its effects on the community, and invited a second time in August 2019. Ms. Fluker is active with the Moratorium Now Coalition, a grass roots organization in the struggle to stop foreclosures and evictions and prevent further devastation of our communities.

Tonya Myers Phillips

Public Policy Advisor

Tonya Myers Phillips is an attorney with 17 years of legal experience and 26 years of public service experience.  She is a leader with a track record of service and advocacy on behalf of the community. Tonya is committed to fighting for laws and policies that treat all people with dignity and eliminate systemic barriers that disparately impact the community.

Tonya received her bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School. She served and worked as a member of the City of Detroit Charter Revision Commission from 2010-2012.

Tonya has served with Michigan Legal Services since 2009 as a Staff Attorney, Board Member, and now Public Policy Advisor with an emphasis on a civil right to counsel for persons facing eviction, affordable and equitable housing policies, and water affordability.