Stern, chair of the firm’s Professional Responsibility practice area, is well-known throughout the state of Ohio for his experience in the areas of professional responsibility and legal ethics issues, including legal malpractice, litigation management and appellate work. He has been with Kegler Brown since 1997.
Professional Responsibility
Geoff provides to his clients preventative consultation, expert witness consultation and testimony, and representation in disciplinary matters. He is also the only person to have served as both Disciplinary Counsel of the Supreme Court of Ohio and Chair of the Ohio State Bar Association Committee on Legal Ethics and Professional Conduct. During his four-year term as Disciplinary Counsel, his office considered more than 14,000 grievances in regard to Ohio’s lawyers and judges. Appearances in 178 Ohio Supreme Court cases.
Litigation
Geoff served as National Coordinating Counsel for a period of ten years representing two clients who were defendants in asbestos litigation throughout the country. This national coordination involved more than 22,000 cases at any given time during the decade. Most of these cases concluded with settlement or judgment for Geoff’s clients, who were able to maintain their businesses during that time of massive litigation.
Career Highlights
Geoff has been chosen by his peers as one of Columbus’ Top Lawyers in Business First’s “The Verdict,” and also designated as a Top Lawyer by The American Lawyer. He has been recognized and listed in Who’s Who in American Law, The Best Lawyers in America®, as an Ohio Super Lawyer by Law & Politics magazine and listed in Who's Who in America for twenty years. He has also received the Columbus Bar Association Liberty Bell Award for service to the profession and community, and recognition by the Ohio State Bar Association for service to the profession through various continuing legal education lectures on ethics, professionalism, and substance abuse issues. A well-respected Ohio lawyer, Stern has made approximately 400 presentations throughout Ohio and the country, as well as internationally.
Stern, chair of the firm’s Professional Responsibility practice area, is well-known throughout the state of Ohio for his experience in the areas of professional responsibility and legal ethics issues, including legal malpractice, litigation management and appellate work. He has been with Kegler Brown since 1997.
Professional Responsibility
Geoff provides to his clients preventative consultation, expert witness consultation and testimony, and representation in disciplinary matters. He is also the only person to have served as both Disciplinary Counsel of the Supreme Court of Ohio and Chair of the Ohio State Bar Association Committee on Legal Ethics and Professional Conduct. During his four-year term as Disciplinary Counsel, his office considered more than 14,000 grievances in regard to Ohio’s lawyers and judges. Geoff has appeared in 178 cases before the Ohio Supreme Court.
Litigation
Geoff served as National Coordinating Counsel for a period of ten years representing two clients who were defendants in asbestos litigation throughout the country. This national coordination involved more than 22,000 cases at any given time during the decade. Most of these cases concluded with settlement or judgment for Geoff’s clients, who were able to maintain their businesses during that time of massive litigation.
Career Highlights
Selected as “2012 Columbus-OH Appellate Practice Lawyer of the Year” by The Best Lawyers in America®.
Geoff has been chosen by his peers as one of Columbus’ Top Lawyers in Business First’s “The Verdict,” and also designated as a Top Lawyer by The American Lawyer. He has been recognized and listed in Who’s Who in American Law, The Best Lawyers in America®, as an Ohio Super Lawyer by Law & Politics magazine and listed in Who's Who in American for twenty years. He has also received the Columbus Bar Association Liberty Bell Award for service to the profession and community, and recognition by the Ohio State Bar Association for service to the profession through various continuing legal education lectures on ethics, professionalism, and substance abuse issues. He has made approximately 400 presentations throughout Ohio and the country, as well as internationally.
Professional Memberships - American Bar Association, member, Center for Professional Responsibility
- American Bar Foundation, fellow
- Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers, member
- Bexley, Ohio, City Council and Civil Service Commission, past President and member
- Columbus Bar Foundation, fellow
- Litigation Counsel of America, fellow
- Ohio Bar Foundation, fellow
- Ohio Citizens Committee for the Arts, past trustee
- Ohio Optical Dispensers’ Board, past public member
- Ohio State Bar Association, Legal Ethics and Professional Conduct committee, former chair
Publications & Presentations
Has made hundreds of presentations, including:
- Litigation Management and Legal Ethics, Practicing Law Institute, Boston, New York and San Francisco
- Numerous Ohio State Bar Association and Ohio law firm seminars on ethics and professionalism
- American Bar Association Commission on Substance Abuse, Minneapolis and Vancouver
- Legal Ethics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Bar Admissions Education - Juris Doctorate (1968)
The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
Summa cum laude; Order of the Coif - Bachelor of Arts, Political Science (1965)
The Ohio State University
Cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa; Pi Sigma Alpha