With a background in business and international affairs, Aimee Jachym is a principal at Miller Canfield who focuses on counseling businesses of all sizes, including public institutions and start-ups, in diverse matters ranging from contract assistance and real estate to regulatory matters and complex agreements. Professionally, Aimee also has a passion for providing access to legal services for those in the community without the financial resources typically required.

As a participant of Leadership Kalamazoo in 2018, Aimee reflects on her experience as fundamental to building her leadership foundation. “That experience afforded me the opportunity to build vocabulary around my own professional strengths and the strengths of others on my team,” said Aimee.  “[Leadership Kalamazoo] also allowed me to be more strategic using the strengths-based lens and to build more intentional teams around strengths and people’s opportunities to grow those strengths.”

During Aimee’s time in the program, she also gained a better appreciation for “the local level of our inner-connectedness—specifically within greater Kalamazoo—and the dynamic and interplay between business, academia, community, and the greater public good. I gained a broader understanding of how, collectively, we have the ability to really influence our community in a meaningful way. Both with our professional jobs and personal lives as we live and grow here.”

In addition to providing business law support for private organizations and institutions, Aimee said she feels proud and privileged that Miller Canfield supports her passion for using her skills and resources to provide pro bono support. “My focus here has always been how can I use my time, talents, and other resources to improve the lives of others around me,” said Aimee. “My firm affords me the opportunity to help others who may not otherwise have resources to pay for legal services, but to still be able to provide them with the same level of service that I provide others who are able to.”

One of Aimee’s previous pro bono projects supported a family in receiving their U.S. naturalized citizenship. “They came here, started working, and didn’t necessarily have the resources or knowledge to navigate the system on their own,” said Aimee. Since the family became naturalized citizens, both daughters graduated from the Kalamazoo Public School system with high honors, and one daughter recently graduated from Kalamazoo College and started a PhD program in Chemistry.

Although Aimee is humble about the impact her pro bono work has had on local families’ futures, she said she is “grateful for the opportunities to get to know others and assist with some small part of the process and the journey.”

About Leadership Kalamazoo
Leadership Kalamazoo, powered by Southwest Michigan First, is Southwest Michigan’s premier civic leadership development program that helps professionals build strengths, talents, knowledge, and relationships to succeed in ever-changing environments. This feature is part of FIRST & 42’s Leadership Kalamazoo Alumni in Action series brought to you by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.