About Nicole
Nicole Appleberry built a legal foundation across two Michigan law schools and an English degree from the University of Michigan. She earned an A.B. in English from the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (1988), a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School (1994) and later completed an LL.M. in Taxation at Wayne State University Law School (2000). The sequence of degrees reflects a shift from the humanities into law and then into a specialized tax credential.
Appleberry’s early career mixed legal and administrative work. After finishing her undergraduate studies she held administrative positions at Group 243 Design, Inc., and later worked as a writer and editor at the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan. In the early 1990s she served as a human resources coordinator at Kaiser Permanente. Those roles gave her practical workplace experience that preceded her law studies.
She moved into legal practice in the mid-1990s. Appleberry served as an assistant prosecuting lawyer at the Livingston County Prosecutor’s Office in 1995. She later practiced as a lawyer with Ferguson & Widmayer, P.C. beginning in 1999. Her time in both public prosecution and private practice exposed her to courtroom procedure and client representation from different institutional perspectives.
In 2007 Appleberry entered legal education as a clinical professor at the University of Michigan Law School. The clinical professorship placed her in direct supervision and instruction of law students handling real cases and client matters under faculty oversight. That role combines classroom teaching and practical supervision, and it is a recurrent feature of her professional life since joining the law school faculty.
Throughout her career Appleberry has remained licensed in Michigan. Her professional path crosses public service, private practice and academia. The variety of her roles—prosecutor, private lawyer, and clinical professor—reflects a practice that bridges litigation and education. She currently concentrates her work on clinical legal education and supervising students at the University of Michigan Law School.
