Legacy That Persists at a Firm That Endures

 

THE PERSONALITY OF A LITIGATOR

When Margaret “Peggy” Costello joined Dykema in 1988, she didn’t see herself as the future face of big law pro bono work. “If you’d asked my classmates where I’d end up,” she laughs, “they’d have said some public interest organization like the ACLU.” Yet the Detroit College of Law night student who once pictured herself in the trenches of public service found a home at one of Michigan’s most prestigious firms.

Her path to Dykema was as pragmatic as it was serendipitous. Encouraged by her trial practice instructor and future mentor, Frank Nizio, Costello interviewed with the firm and was struck by the intelligence and camaraderie of the lawyers she met—especially Kathleen Lewis, who would become both mentor and dear friend. “There were a lot of really smart people there,” she remembers. “I figured I’d stay three or four years, learn from them, and move on.”

“When I joined the firm, someone told me I had the personality of a litigator,” she says. “At the time, I thought that was a compliment. Later, I realized it might’ve been an insult—but whatever.”

Twenty years later, she was still at Dykema, leading one of the country’s most respected pro bono programs.

 

THE EARLY DAYS AND THE WANG ERA

The firm was still running on the old Wang computer system—“We used to joke, ‘I’ll Wang you later,’ which sounds a lot dirtier now than it did then,” Costello says. Beyond the jokes, what she remembers most is the camaraderie. “We’d have these big lunches in the Renaissance Center—sit-down lunches, not just sandwiches—where everyone came together. Often, some of us would end the week at Dionysus, a Greek restaurant downstairs, where people like Dan Stella would hold court. Those relationships mattered. The firm had a real impact on me because of them.”

Costello also credits much of her growth to mentors like Nizio, Lewis, and Larry Connor. “Kathleen was the quintessential writer. If I ever got something back from her that just said ‘good,’ I was ecstatic,” she says. Once, Costello discovered an old “Corner Office” firm newsletter that Lewis had edited—not for submission, just because she couldn’t help herself. “She’d literally gone through and corrected the CEO’s memo. That’s how much she cared about precision.”

 

BUILDING A CULTURE OF SERVICE

Even in her early days with the firm, Costello was looking for ways to serve. “I knew I was at a big law firm with resources,” she says. “So I started asking around; do we do pro bono work here?”

At the time, Dykema’s pro bono activity was informal. Her first case, a modest breach-of-contract matter that won her a $2,000 verdict, might not have turned heads, but it opened the door to something bigger. “It was the first case I ever tried. A little later, the first published appellate opinion I ever got was a pro bono matter,” she recalls. “That gave me experience I never would’ve had that early on.”

By the early 1990s, she had become the firm’s pro bono coordinator for Detroit. The work quickly expanded. In 1993 and again in 1994, Dykema was named the Detroit Bar Association’s “Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year.” The recognition marked a turning point not only for Dykema, but for the state’s legal community. “We went from having a minimal program to being the best in the state, and one of the best in the country,” she says proudly.

After those awards, Dykema began recognizing their own attorneys, who had gone above and beyond in pro bono service. “That first year, we honored five people,” she says. “I still remember the names—me, Nicole Lamb-Hale, Cam Piggott, Pat Mears, and Sandra Cotter. Judge and Dykema alum Nancy Edmunds came to present the awards. It was a big deal!”

Soon after, the program formalized. Each office appointed a representative, and Costello chaired the committee. What had begun as an informal effort now had structure, accountability, and measurable impact. “We had policies, we had requirements,” she says. “You either gave time or money. It was a bit coercive,” she adds with a grin, “but effective.”

Her leadership was as unapologetic as it was inspiring. “I always told them, service is the rent we pay for living—and your pro bono work is the rent you pay for being at this firm. So get your ass up and do it.” That blunt, rallying honesty—paired with the example she set by doing the work herself—was contagious.

Under Costello’s watch, Dykema didn’t just meet the State Bar’s minimum standards—it exceeded them. The firm became a model for large-firm engagement in public service, gaining national attention and even an award from the American Bar Association. “We were the leader,” she says. “And once other firms saw it, they followed. It raised the bar.”

 

STILL TELLING IT LIKE IT IS

Her impact stretched far beyond Dykema’s walls. A longtime consultant psychologist as well as a litigator, Costello brought empathy and structure to her work. When she later joined the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, she helped establish the Veterans Law Clinic, guiding a new generation of lawyers to find meaning in service.

“Law students today are told to take whatever classes will help them pass the bar,” she says, shaking her head. “I tell them—take the courses that make you want to practice law. Passing the exam should be the easy part, and if it’s not, maybe you shouldn’t be practicing law. I’m not a first-grade teacher. My mother was. I tell it like it is.”

Costello’s advice to young lawyers—then and now—remains the same: do the work, and do it for more than yourself of course urging them toward the clinics. “Pro bono work gives you unparalleled experiences,” she says. “It’s good for your clients, your community, your firm, and your career. But more than that—it’s the right thing to do.”

For Costello, fulfillment and service are inseparable. “You can find balance between earning a good living and doing what you love,” she says. “That’s what I try to show them.”

 

A LEGACY OF PURPOSE

Even after leaving the firm, her legacy endures. Dykema continues to honor one of its own each year with the Margaret Costello Pro Bono Award, a gesture she appreciates, but ultimately, she insists, “The name doesn’t matter. What matters is that the firm still has a strong program—that they keep doing the work.”

Retirement, for Costello, has always been more of a suggestion than a state of being. “I lasted about four months,” she admits. “I gag at the word ‘retirement.’ It’s not fun unless it’s stressful.” For the past two years, she has been employed full time as an attorney in the training and publications department of the National Veterans Legal Services Program. “I owe it to give back,” she says simply. “Not because it makes me good—because it makes sense. I’ve been given a lot. It’s what you do.”

When asked what Dykema’s 100-year anniversary means to her, Costello pauses. “It means I was part of something that endured,” she says. “That the name Dykema still stands for excellence, for service, for community. The relationships I made there—they mattered. They still do.”

Her office may no longer be at the Renaissance Center, but her influence lingers—in the policies she helped write, the people she mentored, and the clients who found justice through her persistence. As she likes to say, quoting one of her many maxims: “To those to whom much has been given, much is expected.”

For Dykema—and for every attorney inspired by her example—that expectation continues to light the way.

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Margaret “Peggy” Costello practiced at Dykema for more than 20 years, where she served as Chair of both the firm’s Pro Bono and Diversity Committees. She is the founder and director of the Veterans Law Clinic at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and is currently an attorney with the National Veterans Legal Services Program, a non-profit organization that assists veterans with no charge to them.

This conversation is part of an ongoing series. If you’re a Dykema alum and have a story, we want to hear from you. Please email alumni@dykema.com