ABOUT MICHELE FULLER
Michele Fuller Sees
What It Has to Protect.
Michele Fuller works with trial attorneys to design settlement strategy across benefits, legal tax structures, and trusts — before the first dollar moves.
Why this practice exists
A settlement is not just a number.
It is a strategy.
Michele Fuller built The Architected Settlement Law Group around a simple conviction: settlement should not be treated as a payout event. It should be designed as a legal strategy.
Why this practice exists
Every meaningful settlement crosses three areas — benefits, legal tax structures, and trusts. In many cases, those areas are handled in pieces. Michele’s role is to architect them together.
She is not a broker. She is settlement planning counsel brought in before the first dollar moves, while strategy still has room to work.
Why trial attorneys bring Michele in
Trial attorneys already know how to build a case, value a claim, and win a negotiation. What many have not been given is a legal partner whose job is to architect what happens after the number is reached.
She works with plaintiff’s counsel to design settlement strategy around what the client actually needs protected — not just what can be sold, funded, or distributed.
Major authority
Proven where the stakes were real.
Michele Fuller’s authority is not abstract. It comes from work performed in matters where the consequences were public, complex, and irreversible.
Special Assistant Attorney General
Served in the $600 million Flint Water litigation and designed the settlement process.
Fellow of the Academy
Inducted as a Fellow of the Academy of Court-Appointed Neutrals because of that work.
Co-counsel for minor claimants
Advocated on behalf of minor patient claimants in the $13 million Hawthorn class action matter.
Founder and nonprofit trustee leader
Founder of Michigan Law Center and President of Advocacy, Inc., a nonprofit trustee organization.
That experience shapes how Michele approaches every matter: with fiduciary discipline, legal precision, and a long view of what has to hold after the file is closed.
Michele P. Fuller, Esq.
Michele P. Fuller, Esq. is the founder of The Architected Settlement Law Group and Fuller Special Needs Law, and President of Advocacy, Inc., a nonprofit organization that serves as trustee of special needs trusts and settlement trusts.
Her work focuses on settlement planning, special needs planning, trust administration, and long-term fiduciary protection for vulnerable beneficiaries.
Background and qualifications
Michele Fuller: background and qualifications.
Why this practice exists
- Former Chair of the Elder Law and Disability Rights Section of the State Bar of Michigan
- Advisory Board Member of the Academy of Special Needs Planners
- Board involvement with the Michigan Chapter of NAELA
- Member of the Elder Law and Special Needs Advisory Board for ICLE
- Active member of the Michigan Association for Justice
Publications and writing
- Administering the Michigan Special Needs Trust
- Administering the California Special Needs Trust
- Special Needs Trusts: Protect Your Child’s Financial Future
- Published in Trial Magazine, Michigan Bar Journal, Elder Law Answers, and related journals
Honors and awards
- State Bar of Michigan Unsung Hero Award (2018)
- Super Lawyers, recognized annually since 2018
- Additional recognition for elder law, special needs planning, and client advocacy leadership
Speaking and education
- Regular presenter for the Brain Injury Association of Michigan, Michigan Guardianship Association, ElderCounsel, MassMutual, and the ABA
- Co-host of the Special Needs Planning Symposium
- Co-host of the Great Lakes Special Needs Planning Symposium
Michele’s perspective
What Michele sees in settlement work that others miss.
Settlement work often gets framed around the number. Michele Fuller’s lens is different. She looks at what the settlement has to protect after the check is cut — benefits, long-term stability, legal structures, and the systems that have to hold when the case is over.
That perspective is what turns a transaction into an outcome designed to last.
The three-area lens
She architects outcomes across all three areas
Every settlement of consequence crosses three areas. Michele Fuller’s work is to make sure they are designed together, not handled in fragments.
Benefits preservation
A settlement can improve a client’s life or destabilize it. Michele architects the settlement so the recovery does not unintentionally disrupt Medicaid, SSI, or other means-tested benefits.
Question: Who is protecting the client’s benefits when the check hits?
Strategic structures
Structured settlements protect some of the money. Legal strategy protects all of it. Michele works across legal tax structures and fiduciary instruments that must be designed before the first dollar moves.
Question: Are all of the legal protections in place — or only some of them?
Trust administration
A settlement does not stay protected simply because the paperwork is finished. Michele’s work extends to the trust layer — the part that determines whether the plan holds after the file is closed.
Question: Who is watching the money after the transaction ends?
Miss one and the protection fails.
Michele’s philosophy
A big check is not a win if the client is broke in five years.
That line captures Michele Fuller’s philosophy.
Her work is driven by a practical idea: the settlement is only successful if it protects the life the client still has to live.
That means thinking beyond the number. Beyond the disbursement. Beyond the closing conversation. It means asking whether the structure holds, whether the benefits survive, whether the trust works, and whether the attorney can close the file knowing the outcome was designed to last.
Peer validation
Trusted by attorneys and families who know what is at stake.
“As a busy personal injury attorney, I often face challenging questions of law in my practice. I am delighted to recommend Michele Fuller and the Michigan Law Center PLLC… They assisted … on a unique question with dispatch and professionalism.”
Michael Heilmann
Personal injury attorney
“Michele Fuller is among the best attorneys I’ve worked with. She is kind, responsive, and my ‘go to’ attorney for legal questions relating to special needs planning, trust and estates, and social services planning.”
Donald Sheff
“Ms. Fuller took the time to explain the options available to my family and helped my family reach a resolution… She was kind, attentive, empathetic and knowledgeable.”
Candice Taylor
Next step
Bring Michele in before the settlement strategy hardens.
If a case involves benefits-sensitive issues, complex tax considerations, trust planning, or a vulnerable beneficiary, the settlement strategy should be evaluated before the first dollar moves.
That is where Michele Fuller and The Architected Settlement Law Group come in.
