Recipient for over 20 years of the coveted "AV" 5.0 ® highest possible rating from Martindale-Hubbell ® (emblematic of America's preeminent lawyers) and named by CEO Magazine for the last decade-plus as one of Ohio's "Top Lawyers", Jeffrey M. Lewis is well known in the Central Ohio business, legal and political communities, and has developed a substantial trial practice in local, state and federal
courts in areas as wide-ranging as business, environmental, employment, civil rights, criminal, real estate, creditors' rights, matrimonial/divorce and extraordinary remedies litigation to land use planning/zoning law. Lewis is a Dean's List graduate of Miami (Ohio) University (1978) and earned his Juris Doctorate from The Ohio State University Moritz College Law in 1981. His legal expertise has been recognized by many public officials, as evidenced by his appointment (by Governor Celeste) as Member (later Chairman) of the Ohio State Parking Commission; his appointments as Special Counsel to: the City Attorneys of Columbus, Hilliard, and Whitehall, the Columbus Board of Education, Ohio Attorneys General Celebreeze, Fisher, and Cordray, the Ohio Democratic Party, the Solid Waste Authorities of Central Ohio and Geauga-Trumbull Counties, and the Ohio State Auditor; and his appointments as General Counsel to the Franklin County Democratic Party and the Hilliard City Development Corporation and Law Clerk to the Ohio House Judiciary Committee. A frequent lecturer and writer in the areas of both Trial Practice and Land Use Planning and Zoning Law, Mr. Lewis is/has been a member of the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers, the Franklin County Trial Lawyers Association, the Ohio Association of Civil Trial Attorneys, and the American, Ohio State, and Columbus Bar Associations (co-chairman of the bench-bar retreat committee). He has also served the community: on the Boards of Trustees of the Alvis House and of the Salesian Inner-city Boys and Girls Club; as Franklin County Longhouse Chief in the YMCA Indian Princess Program; as a volunteer for the Columbus Bar Association's Pro Bono Program; as a mentor in the Ohio State University Law Student Mentor Program; as a Nominee of the Franklin County Municipal Court to the Ohio Supreme Court's New Lawyer Mentor Program; as a volunteer in the Legal Aid Society Lawyer Referral Project; as a volunteer in the Columbus Bar Association's Lawyers for Justice Program, and as a judge in the Ohio State and Capital Law Schools' Moot Court programs. In 2008, in what may be the first such instance in Ohio jurisprudential history, Mr. Lewis successfully obtained Writs of Prohibition/Mandamus against the Franklin County Court of Appeals in a case that he filed and argued in the Ohio Supreme Court, State ex rel. Court of Appeals, 118 Ohio St.3d 368, 2008-Ohio-2637. Lewis is licensed to practice law and appear before all Ohio state courts and agencies, the United States District Courts for both the Northern and Southern Districts of Ohio, the Sixth Circuit United States Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. He has also been admitted pro hac vice to appear before state courts in Louisiana, Iowa, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania and federal courts in California and Wisconsin.
