Steve Magas
I came out of the University of Cincinnati in 1979 with a Math Degree and an Education degree. While at UC I thought I would become a Math Teacher and probably coach baseball and volleyball. I was a member of Theta Chi Fraternity and also played on UC’s Men’s Volleyball Team. Can you find the future BikeLawyer in this photo of the Volleyball Team from the winter of 1978-79?
I also played some music at UC – first in the UC Marching Band. The highlight there came early – in October 1975 the Band played the Star Spangled Banner at Game 4 of the Reds v Red Sox World Series. We got to stick around and watch the game from some folding chairs set up WAY out in left field. It was AMAZING! As a long time Cleveland fan, I was excited to see Luis Tiant pitch. As a new Reds fan well… it was just an out of body experience… A few days later, after the Reds Game 7 win, I hitched a ride to Fountain Square and hung out with all the Crazies to celebrate… a FUN time for an 18 year old kid!
As a long time baseball nerd I had to buy a program and keep score…adn as a long time packrat…er… HISTORIAN… I kept that program for safekeeping. I’m still a CLE/CIN baseball fan. We are in a Reds season ticket group!
Later in my UC days I put a small jazz group together to play at some local events. The All Star Blues Pit Band was a big hit…er… OK… we had fun… the Blues Brothers Band had just released an album and we pulled a LOT of horn charts off that album…
I ended up choosing to go Columbus and attend The Ohio State University College of Law. From 1979-1982 I developed from knowing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about “The Law” to… well… knowing a little. Turns out my Math degree provided an OUTSTANDING background for researching the law. “LEXIS” – the computerize legal research tool – was just being finalized when I started at Ohio State. Our class was testing it. Computerized Legal Research was unheard of up that point but it was clearly the wave of the future and required search queries using Boolean Logic, something drilled into us during Math and Computer Programming classes!
At Ohio State the law school was …old… like 1930s WPA construction, with a dingy student locker room in the basement. People tended to bond QUICKLY as “1L’s” – 1st year law students. We were all part of “The Paper Chase” era based on the popular movie. A key scene involves Professor Houseman calling the star to the front of room where he says…”Sir, here is a dime… go call your mother and tell her there is serious doubt that you’ll ever become a lawyer….” We definitely had some “Houseman” style law professors.
Thankfully I met some FANTASTIC people from our OSU Class of 82… we had some VERY smart folks and what not, but we were also known as a group that had FUN together… once email was invented several of us started an email group, centered mostly on complaints about our favorite baseball teams. That group continues to this day & we still have a great turnout at class reunions every 5 years or so…
As a law student I clerked for Wolske & Blue, a personal injury firm in Columbus. I worked for W&B running the Cincinnati Office a couple decades later and learned so MUCH about managing and operating a statewide practice focusing on injury and death claims. I used to joke that working with Cy Wolske & Jason Blue was like working with Columbo and Henry Fonda. Both were VERY effective trial lawyers, especially in front of a jury, but each had their own very distinct style and sense of humor.
After law school my 1st job was working as a Law Clerk for The Honorable Richard N. Koehler in Ohio’s Twelfth Appellate District. This was a PERFECT gig for me. I reviewed trial transcripts from verdicts which had been appealed, I also evaluated Motions granted or denied which had been appealed. I read the briefs filed by the parties, assessed the legal issues raised and arguments presented, researched the legal questions and attended oral arguments. I wrote Draft Opinions for my boss Judge K to review. Often my “Draft Opinions” went out to the world with Judge K’s signature just as I wrote them. I learned so much by reading trial transcripts and having the opportunity to participate in discussions with the three appellate court judges, all of whom had extensive litigation experience… some of the trials involving top notch trial lawyers and some…well… you could tell they were really winging it just by reading the transcript. Some lawyers knew how to write briefs and some had their briefs torn to shreds by one particular judge who did NOT tolerate errors in spelling or logic… Judge K wanted, first and foremost, for us to get the RIGHT answer, which meant extensive research and writing for me. I loved it!
My first law firm job after clerking was on the west side of Cincinnati in a small suburban firm. It was a well established firm of many names – Carroll, Bunke, Henkel, Haverkamp & Smith. My mentor there was a highly respected trial lawyer – a former AUSA – who had several “big” cases percolating at any time. I was able to work on huge injury and death cases, legal malpractice claims, a big police shooting case, and the more typical litigation that small suburban firms engage in. This trial practice was my real passion as a young lawyer and I was able to get extensive experience in the courts surrounding Cincinnati.
In the late 1980s my boss was appointed Special Prosecutor for the purpose of investigating the County Auditor’s office. An audit by the State Auditor had turned up irregularities in the way the Auditor was assessing the value of real estate. Many properties had their values LOWERED, with resulting tax savings to the owner, by some unknown process. Many of these lowered properties had the initials “FOJ” circled on the paper property card in the file. The rumor was that this meant “Friend Of Joe,” referring to Joe DeCourcey, the Auditor…
I was able to run the grand jury. We had to set up an early version [late 1980s] of a data management program to catalog data points from 1000s of properties. We called 100s of witnesses to the grand jury. Eventually a 200-count indictment was delivered by our special grand jury & the Auditor plead GUILTY to 5 counts – one for each category of crime we had charged, including “Theft in Office” which effectively barred him from ever holding office again.
One of the last cases I worked on was a complex police shooting case. A psychiatric patient had walked away from Rollin’s, then a psychiatric institution housing patients. He left with his sister on a 3-hour pass and didn’t want to go back. He was later found by family hiding under his covers in his apartment and police were called. What happened after that was the stuff of bad movies- facts you would never believe to be true… Police arrived and set up outside the door of the apartment & outside a window. The fellow, suffering from schizophrenia, thought police were out to get him… they were. Cincinnati Police had instituted a “Barricaded Persons” policy but the sergeant in charge ignored all of that & called for a battering ram. Before that arrived he just kicked the door in. The victim had a kitchen knife. He was Tasered by police – which seemed to enrage him and he charged and ran in-between them. Police opened fire in a cross fire situation. The fellow fell down the stairs. Various accounts were told – not at all consistent – and at least two more series of multiple shots, and many more Taser firings, occurred before he died… My boss and I took 60+ depositions and lined up a world class expert but the case was tossed out by the District Court. We appealed to the 6th Circuit. I was assigned the oral argument. We were allotted 15 minutes per side but the questioning from the court went on and on for over an hour. Eventually we won a 2-1 decision. That case became known as one of the very first appellate court cases to discuss the use of a TASER device. The Enquirer’s Courts reporter, Ben Kaufman, was in the court that day and did a nice write up of the case.
I left that firm for a job as in-house trial counsel for CIGNA Insurance. This job was ALL litigation all the time. We had cases throughout southern Ohio – from Columbus to Portsmouth and Bellefontaine to Marietta. It really opened my eyes to the VERY different ways different judges handled their dockets. Ohio has 88 counties and 88 different sets of county court rules! My boss usually took the local cases and I ended up driving to Portsmouth, Marietta, Dayton or Bellefontaine! It was a fantastic job and excellent training for my current job as it allowed me to work INSIDE an insurance company. I worked every day with CIGNA’s adjustors on big claims. I learned how insurance carriers “Think” and make decisions.
I worked for another couple other law firms, including a very aggressive insurance defense firm, before branching out on my own.
BIKES & BIKE LAW
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s I was always a cyclist and I picked up my first “bike” cases early in my west side practice. I started writing about Ohio’s Bike Laws in the mid-1980’s. I also began collaborating with the League of American Wheelmen [now the League of American Bicyclists] as well as the Ohio Bicycle Federation and the Cincinnati Cycle Club. At first I wrote for the local club newsletter, then expanded that to other Ohio club newsletters. Eventually, I had a regular column for many years in the LAW’s “BIKE USA” publication as well as Bike Ohio, Bike Midwest and numerous local club newsletters and publications.
After CIGNA I worked for a couple other law firms, including a VERY aggressive insurance defense firm. That was a tremendous experience, although I was probably a misfit. I handled a wide variety of cases for several different insurance company, all while also working on several plaintiff’s injury and death cases. The experience of working with many different adjustors, and defending cases in many different counties, was invaluable. I took several cases through trial.
I was able to keep some bike cases percolating throughout the 80s, 90s and 2000s. Even while working with the insurance company and insurance law firms I was able to keep a few personal cases going as long as they didn’t conflict with the insurers we worked for. This allowed me to further develop my Bike Law chops. I wrote about Bike Law, spoke about Bike Law and engaged, in real life and online, about Bike Law. I also kept RIDING MY BIKE!
My Bike Law practice got noticed. In 1997 the Cincinnati Post did a piece about the practice. They sent a writer & photographer to the office. I thought it would be a little puff piece in the Metro section but they put me on the front page on a slow news day! My Mom liked it so much that she had it framed for office
News Organizations started calling me to get information about Bicycle crashes – especially when tragic events occurred. I have been on many TV and Radio broadcasts from Cleveland to Cincinnati. WOSU in Columbus used to have an annual BIKE DAY and Ann Fisher would invite me to appear on her nationally known show and we would TALK BIKE for an hour. They don’t always get the name spelled right, but that’s OK.
In 2009, after 27 years of working for or with others I started The Magas Firm. We are located at 7850 FIVE MILE ROAD, Cincinnati, OH 45230. The practice of law has changed DRAMATICALLY since I started typing up my own pleadings on an IBM Selectric back in 1982. My MATH degree came in handy as did the classes I took in Computer Programming as an undergraduate. Many lawyers found the transition to a digital world difficult but I have always been an Early Adopter … of word processing, of faxing, of computers and digital data. I was one of the first around here to haul a laptop into Court. This has allowed me to have a small boutique type of narrowly focused personal law practice, and still compete with the bigger firms throughout Ohio.
As the years have passed I have also found that clients do not really enjoy “going to see their lawyer” in some downtown office where they get lost, have to pay big bucks to park, and feel like they waste a lot of time. I have had my office in a suburban setting for decades. As time has move on, I have found that clients prefer to meet in their homes, at work ,in a restaurant or even in the hospital! WE will come to YOU!
I can always be reached for a FREE CONSULTATION at 513-484-BIKE or on my contact page.
I love to get your comments and questions and I try to return every call and email the day it is received. I really don’t have “office hours” and find that returning emails and calls into the evening is a lot easier today than it was 20 years ago!
I am an avid bicyclist, motorcyclist and Ohio trial attorney based in Cincinnati, Ohio. When I purchased my first home computer back [Tech Specs: 386-SX with 100 MB hard drive] in the early 1990’s I had to pick an email name. My “bike law” practice was in full swing even back then and I chose “BikeLawyer@aol.com.” When I switched from PCs to Apple/MAC products I used Apple/Mac’s product and became BikeLawyer@me.com. Now, or course, we have our website at www.OhioBikeLawyer.com and you can reach me at Steve@OhioBikeLawyer.com. I am still ALWAYS available at 513-484-BIKE/2453.
I rode bikes as a kid in the 1960s-70s – we ALL did. We rode everywhere.
My 1st bike was had a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed with upright handlebars and paper boy baskets. I rode that to elementary school. As a teen I bought my first “real”bike – a 10 speed Schwinn Continental that I purchased with money I earned working for my Dad’s buddy. He made bowling trophies and my job was using a HUGE water-cooled drill press to drill holes in the right spots in marble rectangles to make bowling trophies! I was 15 and… I imagine… OSHA really wasn’t a thing at that point! :D.
That bike took me through high school, college and law school until it was stolen during my third year. In 1977 or so I took the Continental on a bike tour with a high school friend, Jim Black. We had none of those fancy “panniers” – just heavy backpacks holding our gear and CANNED FOOD. Ok, we were a bit clueless. We started in Sandusky- took the Peele Islander across Lake Erie to southern Canada & thought we would ride along the coast of Lake Erie & camp on the “beaches” of Canada… the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had different thoughts – NO CAMPING… we still had a blast!
[Helmets weren’t really a THING at that point!]. We did learn ONE big thing – big trucks are SCARY. We apparently went during tomato harvesting season and semis with one or two long trailers loaded with tomatoes passed us every few minutes! We also learned that Canada has HUGE Mosquitos… Mosquitos so big they’ll drag you out of the tent and into the woods… well… OK, maybe not …but you get the picture.
TOSRV was/is the Grandaddy of all the Acronym Rides… It started in Columbus, Ohio back in 1962. I rode TOSRV the 1st time during the early 1990s on a Schwinn Le Tour Luxe with my high school buddy Terry Gaunt. Terry was a STRONG rider – I hung on for dear life! HA! Helmets were a NEW thing by then & we were early HELMET adopters [and got LAUGHED AT by kids on sidewalks as we rode by with our plastic/styrofoam brain buckets]! I did a little touring on the Le Tour also – a fun ride indeed.
Some lawyers handle a few “bike” cases from time to time. MOST are LUCKY if they get 3 or 4 in an entire career. Today, many lawyers will advertise for bike cases and show off a very vanilla, generic looking “bicycle” page on their website. If those pages look similar it’s because they are – they’re often cookie cutter pages designed by a legal marketing firm to attract your views and clicks while lacking the depth of someone who LIVES it. They cite a few crash statistics, put up some “bike” photos they bought online, and then pretend that cycling is so DANGEROUS that you need to beg for their help.
That’s NOT us!
We LIVE Cycling. I come to “Bike Law” as a RIDER first – not a racer, but someone who has used the roads and trails for DECADES to ride for fun, fitness and transportation. My clients appreciate the fact that I “get it” – I understand their PASSION for cycling – the rides – the gear – the experiences on the road when you encounter obnoxious or careless motorists! I ride the bike – I TALK BIKE – I research and write about Bikes and Bike Laws and Bike Cases – I TEACH BIKE LAW to Lawyers & Judges – Bike cases make up 80-85% of my entire practice… teh other 15% or so is usually a hodge hodge of family crashes, referrals for state or federal litigation from other lawyers, Legal Malpractice cases or other claim/tort related matters.
My Bike Law practice has continued to grow over the past FOUR DECADES and I have now handled OVER 500 “BIKE CASES” over the years — representing injured cyclists and the families of those killed on the road!
My Bike Law practice has taken me all over Ohio — with cases in Cleveland, Chardon, Brecksville, Youngstown, Akron/Canton, Wooster, Mansfield, Toledo, Bellefontaine, Union County, Marietta, Athens, Lancaster, Columbus, Dayton, Troy, Cincinnati, Hamilton, Newark, Ontario, Mt. Vernon, Oxford, Lebanon, Pickerington, Bexley, Upper Arlington, Ironton, Chesapeake, Hillsboro and many, many more. I have even been called into cases in several states in which cyclists have been injured or killed.
On the riding side I’m usually found either on an orange Bike Friday World Tourist or a yellow Independent Fabrication Club Racer. [SHHHHhhh… I have a couple different bikes in a couple different shopping baskets at any point in time…including a Class 3 E-bike/hybrid and a titanium Folding Brompton].
The good folks at Bike Friday also modified my World Tourist a few years ago and added a rear hub e-motor to make it a Class 1 E-Bike under Ohio’s new Electric Bicycle definitions. The Bike Friday is very unique- it made it into our advertising, marketing, Logo & Avatar!
I had the Club Racer painted and our Marketing Department and our Department of SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION added a bit of BLING to the frame.
In addition to “handling” claims with insurance companies I have been the first chair lead trial counsel in cases filed in courts in many counties throughout the four corners of Ohio — including the counties of Hamilton, Butler, Warren, Clermont, Montgomery, Cuyahoga, Medina, Richland, Morrow, Greene, Highland, Adams, Brown, Lawrence, Clinton, Scioto, Pike, Franklin, Licking, Fairfield, Delaware, Darke, Miami, Preble, Clark, Champaign, Logan, Hardin, Defiance, Henry, Fulton, Lucas, Wood, Ottawa, Sandusky, Stark, Mahoning, Athens, Washington and many more.
These “Bike Cases” have ranged from $50 traffic tickets to million dollar brain damage and death cases. My Bike Law cases have included bike crashes with cars, trucks and busses, crashes caused by dogs, crashes caused by component and frame failures, crashes caused by road defects, cases against race/event promoters along with other legal matters such as traffic tickets and insurance issues. In addition to working with riders throughout Ohio, I have been called into bike cases around the country, including cases in Kentucky, Indiana, Florida, Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
USING BIKE TECH TO SOLVE AND WIN CASES
As bike “tech” has grown we have not only been early adopters, but we pride ourselves on being able to obtain forensic data extractions from cameras, GPS devices, phones and any electronic device that can help your case. GPS data can be POWERFUL.
In one case in Cleveland it was alleged that my client made a “sudden” movement from a curb lane to the next lane to the left. We were able to use the GPS data to show that only was the client moving VERY slowly but his right to left movement was ALSO very slow, allowing plenty of time for a passing motorcycle driver to SEE him, PERCEIVE him and REACT to him. This image also points out one of the issues in GPS technology. At the end there are a lot of points but the bike was…stationary. The GPS is still running and picking up data from a variety of different satellites. That gives a jumble of points inside that +/- 10 foot margin of error!
In another case the police completely SCREWED UP their use of the GPS data while prosecuting a criminal case against the driver for killing a cyclist. The prosecutor refused our help.
GPS data and Phone Data cannot simply be pulled off the device and “used” in court. Working with this data is like working on a complex construction project. To make it look right in the end you have to follow certain types of procedures and protocols or else the Judge might not allow the evidence in. In criminal cases the Chain of Custody is one thing, but experts in these devices have to testify that they have tested the device, that the device is accurate and producing “good” results. If you fail to do that you open the case up for arguments that you tainted the data or misused the data.
Then, for a GPS, you have to dial it in even more. GPS data is particularly tricky as there is a fairly large “margin of error” [can be +/- 10 feet]. It’s not really an “error” – it’s just that the level of precision of a consumer GPS device is basically a 10 foot circle. The EXPERT has to develop an opinion. In our next case, our expert was able to match up GPS points to particular spots on the road. You may very well need multiple experts to generate opinions that are admissible in court.
In another very recent case attorney Chris Carvile and I started with a claim where a cyclist had been clobbered by a passing Jeep. Based on a witness statement, the Jeep driver’s insured pulled out the WAP defense… WE AIN’T PAYING… a complete denial. They refused to turn over data, refused to make the Jeep available for inspection and basically told us to pound salt. We IMMEDIATELY filed suit and obtained a Temporary Restraining Order preventing any data from being impaired. We inspected the “Black Box” on the Jeep and secured forensic downloads of the driver’s phone as well as our client’s GPS [which police completely IGNORED].
The Jeep driver slammed into our rider near the break in the center double yellow line inside the intersection, he then went left of center, drove in the opposite lane for 100+ feet, hopped the curb, and slammed into some concrete steps in a front yard down the street!
It took a LONG time to fight for this data but in the end we used to driver’s phone to show that there was considerable text activity between the Jeep driver and his out of town girlfriend right at the time of the crash. We had our experts forensically extract the GPS data and then work with the data to establish a opinion to a reasonable degree of engineering certainty as to the path our client took Our expert used the GPS data to track our client’s ride and show that, contrary to the driver’s testimony, our client moved SLOWLY right to left and was aiming at a side street. Our expert created a Powerful evidence video in which he overlaid the GPS data on a map, then introduced the Jeep, an oncoming car and our client on his bicycle in real time based on the testimony we obtained from the driver and other witnesses.
When combined the Text + GPS data showed a driver, admittedly speeding, who was texting while approaching a very complex road situation ahead and showed multiple ways in which the driver was negligent… including Texting, Speeding, Passing within an Intersection, violating the Three Foot law, and negligently executing his pass. The insurer went from ZERO-POUND SALT to “Oh, Ok.. here’s a couple million bucks…”
Our expertise in these cases comes from a LONG History of handling complex cases along with a LONG history of riding bikes and an in depth knowledge of the cycling community, gear, routes, problems, crash patterns, and the like. When we go to a crash scene we look at it as a RIDER would, not a car driver.
I would speculate here that the Generic Bike Web Site Lawyer is NOT gonna know about ANY of this. In fact, in that last case, the Police SAW the GPS on the bike and simply …consciously… ignored the device. Without tapping into the GPS we would have been completely unable to dispute the driver’s versions of what happened.
BIKE ADVOCACY
My interest in the two-wheeled world of bikes and motorcycles extends far beyond the “9-5″ job handling injury and wrongful death claims for cyclists or writing about Ohio’s Bike Laws. I have written many articles on legal topics of interest to cyclists for more than 40 years. I was asked to be the national legal columnist for Bike USA and wrote a bi-monthly column for several years. I have also contributed regular columns to Bike Midwest & Bike Ohio as well as many local club newsletters.
I have sat on the Board of the Ohio Bicycle Federation for a couple decades. The OBF is the statewide bicycle advocacy group in Ohio. In 2006, OBF prepared a set of proposed changes to Ohio Law. We found some friendly legislators to support us and, eventually, the changes we proposed were adopted into Law by a unanimous vote of the Ohio legislature! I was able to travel to D.C. several times as an OBF Board member, representing Ohio at the National Bike Summit. We attended conferences and spoke with every Ohio representative and Senator, or their top transportation people, seeking change at the federal level to support cycling. We even had members of the Congressional Bike Caucus join us on a ride through D.C.
In 2007, Bob Mionske, an Olympic cyclist-turned-lawyer, was writing a new book on bike law. Bob was familiar with my writing and asked me to contribute several chapters. The book, Bicycling and the Law, is aimed at riders, not lawyers, and garnered wide praise in the Bike World when it was released.
Bicycling and the Law is designed to be a primary resource for cyclists and clubs to consult when faced with a legal question. It provides readers with knowledge to avoid many legal problems in the first place while informing cyclists of their rights, their legal responsibilities and the steps they can take if they encounter a legal problem. While I am certainly not unbiased, I believe it’s the VERY BEST bicycle law book out there for lawyers & cyclists.
I have been an active advocate for bicycling and motorcycling at the local, state and national level for many decades. In the 1980s we tried to get the City of Cincinnati’s attention, but they couldn’t spell BIKE if we spotted them the “B-I-K–” Since then our city, and many in Ohio, have come full circle, supporting cycling on the road and off. I have worked with several Ohio communities on upgrading their “bike” laws and I’ve testified several times before the Ohio legislature in support of laws favoring cyclists. I have been a strong legal advocate for cycling locally, statewide and on a national level. I continue to work pro bono [i.e., for FREE] with local clubs and local governments on a variety of legal issues.
In Trotwood v. Selz, I worked in tandem with the Ohio Bike Federation to protect your right to ride on Ohio’s roads. We secured an important victory for cyclists in Ohio’s Second District court of appeals by getting Steve Selz’s conviction for “impeding traffic” overturned. This appellate decision became part of the changes proposed in the OBF’s 2006 Better Bicycling Bill, which was passed unanimously by the Ohio House and Senate.
In the Motorcycling world, I have written many articles for Roadwheeler, a monthly magazine for motorcycling enthusiasts. I have also worked with the Ohio Right of Way Coalition. This group has sponsored legislation in Ohio to better protect “vulnerable users” of the roadways, such as motorcyclists and bicyclists. I testified in Columbus in support of legislation which would increase the penalties for “minor” right of way violations when those violations result in the death or injury of another user of the roadway. When a Humvee rear-ends a Chevy S-1o pick-up, there are rarely significant injuries. However, when ANY motor vehicle rear-ends a bicycle or motorcycle, the rider can easily be severely injured or killed. Under current Ohio law, the penalties for the motorist for such right of way violations are the same regardless of whether injuries or death result and the Right of Way Coalition is working to change that!
In 2008, my article, “The BLS [Boring Legal Stuff] for the Touring Cyclist,” was chosen for inclusion in a national cycling publication – the Cyclists Yellow Pages published by Adventure Cycling. This article was so favorably received that I was asked to contribute an article on “Bike Law” for the 2009 CYP. The BLS was actually picked up and mentioned in ther Wall Street Journal. Eventually I became a LIFE MEMBER of Adventure Cycling.
In 2000, I published my 2nd extensive article on Bike Law for lawyers in “TRIAL“, the law journal of the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers. The first was way back in 1997 [during The Bearded Bike Lawyer decades…!]
I was invited by the Academy to speak at its annual convention as to cases involving “Bicycle Products Liability” claims.
I’ve also written articles for the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Bar associations.
I’ve been working on Bike cases for decades. WAY back in 1998 a full-page article about my “niche” in the bike world was featured in Lawyer’s Weekly USA. I was also featured in the inaugural issue of
Cincy Business magazine where the article focused on my attempt to maintain such a unique practice in the Midwest. My Bike Law practice was also featured locally in Cincinnati magazine and the Cincinnati Post.
I have developed a Continuing Legal Education class for Lawyers called BIKELAW 101. I talk about the
History of Bike, and cycling advocacy, as well as a detailed look at Bike Laws, problems you encounter, unique problems that can arise in the handling of bike cases, novel ways to develop evidence, using GPS data, security cameras, doorbell cameras, police cruiser/body cams and even the rare dash cam footage you come across. I have given this CLE lecture to lawyers and judges in Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati and throughout Ohio in dozens of in-person and remote seminars.
KY BIKE LAWYER Chris Carville and I have tag teamed both complex Bike cases and seminar presentations. Chris is licensed in both Ohio and Kentucky and talks about the Kentucky cycling laws while I cover Ohio. We co-wrote an article for the Cincinnati Bar Association a few years ago…
On a personal level, I live in an A-frame in the hilly woods of Anderson Township near Cincinnati with my new bride [married almost 18 years now!]. We have 3 children between us, and 4 grandkids! SO MUCH FUN!
Now, even the GRANDkids are growing up up UP
If you have read through my BIO to THIS point you are to be commended & congratulated! Send me a note & I’ll send you a BIKELAWYER OREO!
My beautiful bride & I love bicycling the roads and trails of Southwest Ohio. We have retired the Big Bike, a 2004 BMW R1150RT [although I’m always looking for a good price on an old BMW 650gs…] A few years ago though we took a motorcycle trip north, through a couple hundred miles of rain, and toured the “North Coast” of the Indiana Dunes. We managed to use our early 2000s version of a GPS to guide us to Buddy Guy’s blues club in downtown Chicago for a wonderful night of blues and such from a fantastic band!!
