Fresh from a year of active duty with his U.S. Army JAG Corps reserve unit, Steve joined the firm’s downtown office in 2009. He practices in the Litigation Department and focuses on white collar defense and investigations, as well as administrative, municipal and elections law. He also has significant experience in labor law, non-compete agreements, the defense of civil rights claims and criminal defense.

Steve’s extensive legal background includes: five years in the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office Criminal Division; serving as a Special Assistant United States Attorney with jurisdiction over a large Army base; litigating as lead counsel more than three dozen jury trials; clerking in the local common pleas court; and managing his own successful downtown law practice. He has appeared before every judge in our local state courts and has argued before federal courts in Ohio and North Carolina. Steve has also successfully litigated before the Ohio Liquor Control Commission, the Ohio Elections Commission, the Ohio Unemployment Bureau and the Ohio Supreme Court’s Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline.

He has represented local corporations and non-profits as well as municipalities, labor unions and individual police officers. He has worked with all local enforcement agencies, both state and federal. Steve excels in internal investigations which identify problematic business practices before government regulators become involved. He also possesses extensive expertise in dealing with fraud and embezzlement cases.

Steve has advised numerous candidates for public office in matters relating to campaign finance, fundraising, advertising and petition circulation. He has worked with office-holders and office-seekers at all levels of government, including judicial, congressional, municipal and county commission candidates. Additionally, Steve has drafted and litigated initiatives and referenda.

Outside the office, Steve remains active as a United States Army reservist. His Army work has taken him to five different Army bases in eastern and central Europe and to numerous posts throughout the continental United States. He is a certified instructor in the Army’s hand-to-hand combat program and has been awarded numerous medals and commendations for his legal work, including a special award for his mobilization in support of the Global War on Terrorism. Most recently, Steve served as both a military and federal prosecutor with the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, winning a rape conviction after a lengthy jury trial and advising the Army’s capital litigation court-martial team.

Prior to his legal career, Steve worked as a journalist for several newspapers throughout Ohio and served as a legislative aide to the Ohio General Assembly. He also spent a year on the outskirts of the Sahara Desert as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Steve remains very active in the Greater Cincinnati community. He is a past trustee of the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA), the multi-jurisdictional government body that oversees the Metro bus line. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the River City Correctional Center, a state-supported lock-down drug treatment facility for non-violent felony offenders. He also performs pro bono legal work for the Disabled American Veterans Network and Pro Seniors.

He lives with his wife Jennifer (executive director of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Cincinnati) and his daughters Hadley and Beatrice in Wyoming – where he was selected a Citizen of the Year in 2005.