Eric Zagrans has been a trial and appellate litigator concentrating in complex business litigation and federal court practice since 1978 following his completion of a year's service as a law clerk to United States District Judge Roszel C. Thomsen in Baltimore. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame with an A.B. degree in 1974, and received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School in 1977.
Mr. Zagrans started practice in Cleveland with Hahn, Loeser, Freedheim, Dean & Wellman, and remained with the firm until 1981. While with Hahn, Loeser, Mr. Zagrans practiced in the area of business litigation with an emphasis in antitrust and civil rights matters.
He was an assistant professor of law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law from 1980-1985 teaching Civil Procedure, Federal Jurisdiction, Evidence and Administrative Law. He has also taught as an adjunct faculty member at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and CWRU during six semesters since 1979. He has authored or co-authored a dozen academic articles and continuing legal education materials, including a law review article regarding the proper scope and construction of federal civil rights liability which has been approvingly cited in many cases and scholarly treatises: Under Color of What Law: A Reconstructed Model of Section 1983 Liability, 71 VA. L. REV. 499 (1985).
From 1981 through 1985, while he was a full-time law professor at CWRU, Eric was of counsel to the firm of Arter & Hadden. After he left the regular faculty, he became a litigation partner with Arter & Hadden handling a wide variety of business, RICO, products liability, local governmental and professional malpractice litigation in federal and state courts across the country. He was selected to head the firm's appellate practice group in Cleveland.
From June 1988 until May 1992, Eric served as Associate General Counsel of Ernst & Young, representing a Big 6 accounting and professional services firm in significant litigation on an international scope, with a particular focus in professional liability defense, securities fraud, class action and employment discrimination/human resources litigation.
Mr. Zagrans returned to private practice in June 1992 and has continued his trial and appellate litigation practice since January 1994 with The Zagrans Law Firm.
Eric is admitted to practice in Ohio and the District of Columbia, and is a member of the bars of the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Fourth and Sixth Circuits, and the United States District Courts for the Northern District of Ohio and the District of Maryland. The Chief Judge of the Northern District selected him as an Advisor to implement new Local Rules under the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990, and Eric serves the Court as an approved ADR panelist.
He is a member of the Cleveland, Lorain County, Ohio State, District of Columbia and American Bar Associations, as well as a past member of the American Corporate Counsel Association (ACCA) and the Ohio Association of Civil Trial Attorneys (OACTA). He is an active member of the ABA's Judicial Administration Division and Sections of Business Law, Antitrust Law, Tort & Insurance Practice and Litigation, where he serves as the Ohio state chair of the Sixth Circuit Subcommittee of the Appellate Practice Committee. In that capacity, he helped plan and served as a panel moderator at the first two Sixth Circuit Appellate Practice Institutes held in Cincinnati in 1983 and 1990. Eric is also a participating member of the Antitrust, Corporate Counsel, Federal Procedure, Professional Liability, Trial Evidence and Trial Practice Committees of the Section of Litigation.
Eric was elected to membership in the American Law Institute in 1987, and was a member of the Consultative Group that worked on the recently-published Complex Litigation Project. He is currently active on the Restatement (Third) of the Law of Products Liability and the initial Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers
Mr. Zagrans has extensive experience in alternative dispute resolution methods and procedures, starting with an intensive training program in alternative bargaining and negotiating techniques under the supervision of Professor Roger Fisher at Harvard Law School. He has participated in numerous mediations, arbitrations and other ADR vehicles. The judges of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio appointed Mr. Zagrans to serve as the mediator or neutral evaluator in eight federal cases during an 18-month period. In addition, he has recently been selected to mediate other cases by various Courts of Common Pleas. Eric has also been engaged by the United States Government and others as an expert witness in three professional liability and mass toxic tort cases.