Dane Carey Attorney and Partner at Carey Jaskowski PLC brings a genuinely unusual combination of credentials to his writing: a J.D. earned magna cum laude from Michigan State University College of Law in 2015, an M.B.A. earned with honors from MSU's Eli Broad College of Business that same year, and more than a decade of on-the-ground legal work in Grayling, Michigan. His practice at Carey Jaskowski PLC covers complex property disputes, riparian rights and water law, real estate litigation, land use, zoning, and general civil litigation. He also serves simultaneously as Legal Counsel, Deputy Finance Director, and Board Member for The Brook Retirement Communities, a Michigan-wide organization in which he holds a part-ownership interest. That triple role means he routinely sits at the intersection of law, finance, and governance, not as a theorist but as someone directly accountable for the outcomes.
Dane started this blog because the questions his clients ask most often deserve a clearer, more direct answer than they typically find online. His voice is shaped by years of advising buyers, sellers, landowners, and businesses on the kinds of problems that look simple from the outside and get expensive fast. He writes from the perspective of a northern Michigan lawyer who has spent real time on waterfront access disputes, boundary disagreements, and easement conflicts where the physical facts and the legal facts did not match. A recurring theme here is exactly that gap: a driveway used for thirty years, a dock that has sat in the same spot for generations, a fence that everyone assumed marked the line. His writing explains why long-standing practice and legal right are not the same thing, and what property owners can do before a problem becomes a lawsuit.
Readers of this blog can expect practical, plain-language analysis drawn from Dane's experience in Michigan real estate law, riparian and water rights, corporate governance, and business disputes. Posts focus on what buyers and sellers miss during due diligence, how easements and waterfront rights actually work under Michigan law, and how smart pre-transaction planning reduces the risk of conflict later. The writing is grounded in real cases and real questions, not hypotheticals. To learn more about Dane's background and legal practice, visit the home page or get in touch directly.