 |
Ohio Consumer Law
|
|
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Harold L. Williams (Editor and
Principal Author) has been a Legal
Aid Society of Cleveland (LASC)
staff attorney since l975, and has
specialized in employment, health,
labor and consumer law. He is a l975
graduate of the Catholic University
of America, Columbus School of Law
and is a member of the Consumers
League of Ohio, Consumer Agencies
Network, National Association of
Consumer Advocates, and serves as
legal advisor to Cleveland Consumer
Action, Inc. He also supervises the
LASC Consumer Unit.
Gail White (Chapter 2, Consumer
Sales Practices Act) joined the
staff of the Legal Aid Society of
Cleveland (LASC) in 1985, and is an
attorney in its Consumer Unit. Ms.
White received her law degree from
the University of Akron School of
Law in 1981. Prior to coming to
LASC, Ms. White served as a judicial
clerk for the Honorable Leroy J.
Contie of the U.S. District Court
and the Sixth Circuit Court of
Appeals, and as a staff attorney for
the American Civil Liberties Union
of Cleveland. From 1989 to 2004, Ms.
White was managing attorney of the
LASC's Westside Office, which sat
amidst a covey of used car lots that
generated numerous clients for the
office and provided Ms. White with
an opportunity to further her
expertise in the area of consumer
law.
Carolyn L. Carter (Chapter 16, Truth
in Lending Law; Chapter 17, Credit
Insurance) was Law Reform Director
for the Legal Aid Society of
Cleveland (LASC) from 1978 to 1986.
She received her law degree from
Yale Law School in 1973, and joined
LASC in 1974. with her extensive
experience representing consumers in
both state and federal courts, as
well as in administrative
proceedings, she has been a frequent
lecturer at local, state and
national seminars and conferences
sponsored by legal service
organizations, bar associations, and
consumer groups. Ms. Carter has been
a member of the Board of Directors
of the National Consumer Law Center
and a member of the Consumers League
of Ohio. In 1985, she received the
Ohio Consumer Leadership Award from
the Ohio Consumers Association. She
was co-director of the Legal
Services Inc. in Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, from 1986 to 1999. She
is currently an Of-Counsel for the
National Consumer Law Center.
O. Randolph Bragg (Chapter 5, Fair
Debt Collection Practices Act) is an
attorney in private practice in
Chicago. He is the co-author of
National Consumer Law Center's Fair
Debt Collection (3d ed. 1996 &
Supp). After graduation from West
Virginia University College of Law
in 1973, he practiced with Legal
Services Corporation funded programs
in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
During 1985 to 1993, he was a
Litigation Coordinator for UAW Legal
Services Plans. During 1993, he
received a fellowship to work with
the National Consumer Law Center.
Mr. Bragg has engaged in extensive
Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
litigation in federal appellate and
trial courts.
Laura McDowall (Chapter 7, “Lemon
Law”) is a partner in the law firm
of Young & McDowall in Akron, Ohio.
She earned her J.D. from the
University of Akron School of Law in
1987. Since her admission to law
practice in 1987, she has
concentrated on consumer protection
cases, including lemon law, auto
fraud, predatory lending, and other
consumer issues. She recently
appeared as an amicus in the case of
Royster v. Toyota Motor Sales,
U.S.A. (2001), 92 Ohio St. 3d 327,
the first lemon law case to come
before the Ohio Supreme Court, which
ruled that a consumer enjoys a
presumption of recovery under Ohio’s
Lemon Law if the vehicle is out of
service by reason of repair for a
cumulative total of thirty or more
calendar days in the first year of
ownership, regardless of whether the
vehicle was successfully repaired at
some point beyond that thirty-day
period. Mrs. McDowall serves on or
chairs various committees for the
National Association of Consumer
Advocates; the Ohio Academy of Trial
Lawyers; Summit County Trial Lawyers
Association; and the Akron Bar
Association. A frequent lecturer on
consumer topics, she has presented
at seminars sponsored by the
National Consumer Law Center;
National Association of Consumer
Advocates; Ohio Academy of Trial
Lawyers; Ohio State Bar Association;
Summit County Trial Lawyers’
Association; and other professional
and civic groups. She also testified
before the Ohio Senate in 1999
during hearings on proposed
amendments to the Ohio Lemon Law.
Rocco P. Yeargin (Chapter 7, “Lemon
Law”) is an attorney with the law
firm of Young & McDowall in Akron,
Ohio. He earned his J.D., magna cum
laude, from the University of Akron
School of Law in 1996. He is a
member of the Akron Bar Association,
National Association of Consumer
Advocates, the Summit County Trial
Lawyers Association, and the Ohio
Academy of Trial Lawyers. He is one
of the few lawyers to successfully
try a laundered lemon case and has
lectured on “Preparing and Trying
the Laundered Lemon Case” for the
Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers.
Jim Buchanan (Chapter 9,
Mobile/Manufactured Home Law) is a
senior staff attorney for
Southeastern Ohio Legal Services
(S.E.O.L.S.). After he received his
law degree from the University of
Cincinnati School of Law in l985 he
worked for Central Ohio Legal Aid
Society and The Housing Advocates,
Inc. before joining S.E.O.L.S. in
its Chillicothe office. He formerly
served as the general public
representative on the Ohio
Department of Health's Manufactured
Housing/Campground Advisory Board.
In addition he has written books and
law review articles about
manufactured housing and has
testified numerous times before the
state legislature on housing issues.
Joseph J. Cusimano (Chapter 10,
Ohio’s Condominium Act/Consumer
Protection Provisions) is a partner
in the law firm of Kaman & Cusimano.
He earned his law degree from the
Case Western Reserve University
School of Law, cum laude, in 1992.
His concentration of practice is in
all aspects of community association
law, including developer related
issues, construction defects, rule
enforcement, construction,
maintenance and service maintenance
contracts, telecommunications
concerns, civil rights disputes,
municipal related matters, document
interpretation, amendment
preparation, collections and annual
meeting attendance. He is a member
of the Community Association
Institute, as well as the American
Bar Association, Ohio State Bar
Association, Cuyahoga County Bar
Association, and Cleveland Bar
Association (Secretary of the Real
Estate Section). He has lectured
extensively on condominium and real
estate topics before professional
and civic organizations.
Edward A. Icove (Chapter 11, Retail
Installment Sales Act) is a
Principal with Smith and Condeni
LLP. He received his law degree from
the University of Toledo College of
Law in 1976, after which time he was
a VISTA and legal services attorney
with the Cincinnati Legal Aid
Society and Southeastern Ohio Legal
Services (SEOLS). He currently
serves as a board member of the
Legal Aid Society of Cleveland
(LASC) and the Federal Bar
Association, Northern District of
Ohio. He has handled numerous
individual and class action cases in
both state and federal courts. In
1986 and 1997, Mr. Icove received
awards from SEOLS and LASC for
outstanding pro bono services. He
has lectured at various consumer
conferences. He is a member of the
National Association of Consumer
Advocates, Ohio State Bar
Association, Ohio Academy of Trial
Lawyers, Cuyahoga County Bar
Association, and the Cleveland Bar
Association. He is also a member of
the consumer task forces organized
by Ohio State Legal Service
Association and the LASC.
Byron K. Bonar (Chapter 12,
Rent-to-Own Transaction) iscurrently
a senior staff attorney with Legal
Aid of Western Ohio, Inc. After
receiving his law degree from
Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in
1979, he joined the Rural Legal Aid
Society as a staff attorney, where
he became the managing attorney in
the Troy office from 1986 until
March 1999. From March 1999 until
May 2000 he was Acting Executive
Director of the Rural Legal Aid
Society of West Central Ohio. He
joined Legal Aid of Western Ohio,
Inc. in 2004. Mr. Bonar also holds
an M.A. in economics from The Ohio
State University. He also retired as
a Lieutenant Colonel in the Judge
Advocate General (JAG) Corps of the
Army Reserves.
Richard K. Schwartz (Chapter 14,
Small Loan and Mortgage Loan
Lending; Chapter 16, Truth in
Lending Law) is the Civil and
Traffic Magistrate of the Elyria
Municipal Court in Lorain County,
Ohio. After receiving his law degree
from the Ohio State University in
l985, he joined the Legal Aid
Society of Lorain County, Inc. as a
staff attorney. From l989 to l99l,
he was Managing Attorney of the
Steubenville Office of Southeastern
Ohio Legal Services, after which he
returned to Lorain County as
Supervising Attorney until 1998.
Andrea K. Price (Chapter 18,
Holder-in-Due-Course Status and
Assertion of Consumer Claims Against
Creditors) is a senior staff
attorney with the Legal Aid Society
of Cleveland (LASC). She received
her law degree from the
Cleveland-Marshall College of Law,
Cleveland State University in 1982.
She was a Reginald Heber Smith,
Community Lawyer Fellow from
1982-1984 in Louisville, Kentucky.
She joined the LASC in 1985 and is
currently an attorney in its
Consumer Unit.
Stephanie M. Jackson (Chapter 19,
Security Interests; Repossession and
Sale; Chapter 22, Student Loans)
graduated from the Ohio State
University College of Law in 1986
and joined the Legal Aid Society of
Cleveland (LASC) staff in 1987. She
has worked as a staff attorney in
several LASC neighborhood offices,
representing clients on numerous
consumer issues, and has developed
an expertise in consumer law that
continually accrues to the benefit
of LASC clientele. Ms. Jackson also
supervises the LASC’s Health,
Education, Welfare and Income
Maintenance Unit.
Jennifer R. Stoller (Chapter 22,
Student Loans) is an Order of the
Coif graduate of Tulane Law School
and joined the Legal Aid Society of
Cleveland in 1999. As a result of a
project she organized to assist
former students of proprietary
schools, the United States
Department of Education has
discharged the student loans of over
500 clients, resulting in over
$3,000,000 in loan forgiveness, and
the refund of more than $1,000,000
to them. Ms. Stoller has also
successfully petitioned the United
States Department of Education to
waive the requirement of
individualized evidence of
ability-to-benefit fraud for former
PSI Institute students; thereby
simplifying the Department’s student
loan discharge process such that it
similarly inures to the benefit of
former PSI students in nine states.
Stanley A. Hirtle (Chapter 23,
Payday Loans) is a senior attorney
at Advocates for Basic Equality, in
the Dayton office. He graduated from
Northwestern University School of
Law in 1973. He was managing
attorney of the consumer law unit at
the Legal Aid Society of Dayton from
1990 until a recent reorganization.
He has also worked for the Legal Aid
Society of Cincinnati, and in
private practice.
|
|
|
