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Cincinnati attorney elected to OSBA president-elect
RICHARD WEINER
Legal News Reporter
Published: May 30, 2014
Cincinnati attorney John D. Holschuh Jr. has been elected president-elect of the Ohio State Bar Association (OSBA). Holschuh will take office as OSBA president on July 1, 2015.
In taking his position, Holschuh said that the OSBA “has to continue to be the voice and the representative for attorneys in the state of Ohio, and for the profession altogether.”
He said that he sees three main projects that he would like to work on during his tenure. One, to get young lawyers more involved in the association. Two, to restore legal aid funding and three, to continue to act as an advocate for the profession. He said he is also very interested in the issues facing older lawyers, and in the use of technology to help attorneys increase access to the association’s services.
Holschuh comes from a legal family, and he said that has provided a great impetus to his work in public service and the law.
“My father was a trial attorney who became a federal judge in 1980,” Holschuh said. “He served on the bench until he passed away three years ago. He was always my biggest role model and leader.”
His father was appointed to the federal bench the same year that the younger Holschuh graduated from The University of Cincinnati School of Law, after completing his undergraduate work at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Since graduating from law school, Holschuh has only worked at one law firm for his entire career—Cincinnati’s Santen & Hughes, LPA, where he is a partner primarily representing patients and their families in medical negligence and personal injury litigation.
Holschuh has received a plethora of recognition for his work in the profession. He has been listed in Best Lawyers in America for the past 15 years and has placed on numerous other like lists. He is a fellow and state chair in the American College of Trial Lawyers, an advocate of the American Board of Trial Advocates, and fellow of the International Society of Barristers.
Holschuh has committed a great deal of time to the bar through the years. He is a past president of the Cincinnati Bar Association and the Cincinnati Bar Foundation, in addition to his positions within the OSBA.
A current member of the OSBA’s Board of Governors, Holschuh has also recently served on the membership committee, which he said has led him to a strong belief in the need to attract younger lawyers into the organization.
The OSBA has approximately 25,000 members, out of a total population of about 40,000 Ohio lawyers.
“That’s pretty good for a non-mandatory bar association,” said Holschuh.
At the same time, in the last few years, he said, “membership has been pretty level or in a slight decrease. That needs to change and particularly with younger lawyers. Kids are coming out of law school now with $100,000 in debt and not nearly enough jobs available for them. They are left to hang out their shingle or take whatever job is offered to them. I want to work on reaching out to the younger lawyers across the state and showing them the ‘new’ face of the OSBA.”
That new face, he said, includes both all of the new technology being developed by the association and the new leadership that has recently come in the form of new Legislative Counsel Todd Book and new Executive Director Mary Amos Augsburger.
On his second topic of interest, Holschuh said he is very concerned about the low level of funding of legal aid. “Last year, legal aid offices had to close,” he said. “This is not acceptable. We need solutions.” A number of people across the state are working on the situation, he said, including free legal clinics and other ideas.
“We have to come together and see what we can do for the people who need legal help the most,” he said.
Also on Holschuh’s list is to continue the strong relationship among the OSBA, the Ohio Supreme Court, and the state legislature.
Holschuh also expressed concern for the situation of older lawyers in the state, particularly those whose skills may have diminished but who still have the need to keep working.
In general, he said that the OSBA, “is recognized as the number one bar association in the country,” in member benefits and in representing the interests of its members.
“This is a positive and exciting time, and we need to take that momentum and keep it going.”