elected to the Michigan Supreme Court in 1998 for an eight-year term. In January 2001, she was elected Chief Justice.


She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Marygrove College in Detroit in 1969, and Cum Laude from the University of Detroit Law School in 1973.


Justice Corrigan served as a law clerk to Judge John Gillis of the Michigan Court of Appeals. She worked as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Wayne County from 1974 to 1979. In 1979, she became Chief of Appeals in the United States Attorney’s Office in Detroit. In 1986, she was promoted to Chief Assistant United States Attorney, the first woman to hold that position. In 1989, Justice Corrigan became a partner in the law firm of Plunkett & Cooney. In 1992, Governor John Engler appointed her to the Michigan Court of Appeals. She was elected to successive terms in 1992 and 1994. After she received the nomination of the judges of the Court of Appeals, the Michigan Supreme Court appointed her Chief Judge of that Court in 1997. She served two years as Chief Judge before her election to the Supreme Court.


Justice Corrigan is active in community and professional activities. Currently, she is serving as the chair of the Conference of Chief Justices Problem Solving Courts committee and as a faculty member of the American Inns of Court. Justice Corrigan served as the public member of the Michigan Law Revision Commission from 1991 to 1998. She was a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Attorney Advisory Committee and the local rules committee of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. She served on the executive board of the Michigan Judges Association and the Judicial Advisory Board of the Center for Law and Organizational Economics at the University of Kansas Law School. She also served on the board of Boysville of Michigan. She is a past president of the Incorporated Society of Irish American Lawyers and the Federal Bar Association, Detroit Chapter.


Justice Corrigan has won several awards for her professional achievements including: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (OCS) Award for significant improvements to Michigan's Child Support Enforcement Program, honorary doctorates of laws from Northern Michigan University and University of Detroit-Mercy, the U.S. Department of Justice Director’s Award for Outstanding Performance as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and the Federal Bar Association’s Leonard Gilman Award to the Outstanding Practitioner of Criminal Law. She has also published articles in various professional journals, including the Wayne Law Review and University of Toledo Law Review, and taught as an adjunct professor at Wayne State University Law School. She has been a faculty member at programs of the Michigan Judicial Institute, the American Bar Association Appellate Practice Institute, the Federal Bar Association, and the U.S. Department of Justice Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute.


Justice Corrigan is the widow of Wayne State University Distinguished Professor of Law Joseph D. Grano and is the mother of Megan and Daniel.