Michaels began his legal career as a clerk for Chief Judge
Wilfred Feinberg of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1986, and then Associate Justice
Harry A. Blackmun of the
United States Supreme Court in 1987. Between 1988 and 1991, Michaels worked at McGuire & Tiernan in
New York City, where he was outside counsel to the
Major League Baseball Players Association. Michaels then served as an assistant district attorney in the
New York County District Attorney’s Office as a member of the Career Criminal Bureau from 1991 to 1995. Michaels entered academia in 1995 when he joined the faculty of the
Moritz College of Law. Since joining Moritz, Michaels was twice presented the College’s Outstanding Professor Award as voted by the graduating classes of 2000 and 1999. In 2007, Michaels was given the university’s Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. In November 2008, the Ohio State University Board of Trustees named Michaels the nineteenth Dean of the Moritz College of Law. He remained in this position for 11 years, ably steering Moritz through a period of upheaval in the national legal job market and hence declining admissions to law school. At the time he stepped down as dean, Moritz had risen to a national ranking of #34 by U.S. News & World Report. ==Scholarly work==