** My practice is limited to consulting with and assisting other lawyers only. Currently, I neither represent nor advise clients.**

Summary of Professional Experience

Since 1969, I have litigated extensively both in Ohio courts and in various federal-district and circuit courts nationally. The largest portion of the work was in litigation involving common-law and commercial contracts. For well over 30 years, I was one of two lawyers to whom Dana Corporation assigned lawsuits around the country when the company had an especially heightened interest.

Throughout the most active years of my career, I often consulted — frequently at length — with lawyers handling criminal, civil-rights, insurance-coverage, governmental, antitrust, or a smattering of other kinds of cases and disputes. Sometimes, I joined them as co-counsel for motion-practice or at trial. Sometimes, they referred the entire matter to me. But most often, they simply sought advice on questions pertaining either to evidence law or to the interpretation of contracts and statutes. At various times, I was involved in prison-reform litigation in Ohio, Georgia, Texas, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Twice in my career, an Ohio attorney general — one Democratic and one Republican — appointed me to serve as Chief Counsel, a position that in Ohio is statutorily designated. I am the only person to be appointed to that position by attorneys general from each major political party. I served on the Ohio Constitution Modernization Commission, and I chaired the Ohio Supreme Court’s Rules Advisory Committee, now known as the Commission on the Rules of Practice and Procedure.

In Martindale-Hubbell’s peer-reviewed ratings, I have been rated consistently as “preeminent,” the publication’s highest ranking, in legal ability and awarded the publication’s highest ranking for ethics. Until withdrawing from full-time practice, I was listed annually in The Best Lawyers in America and in Ohio Super Lawyers. The latter included me on its initial list of Top 100 Ohio lawyers. 

Articles I wrote have been published in law reviews at Harvard, Case Western, Cleveland State, Toledo, and Akron as well as in journals published by the American Bar Association, the Ohio Bar Association, and other organizations.