Attorney Profiles

Robert F. Linton, Jr. has been a trial attorney since 1984. Before joining his firm, Bob was a partner in one of Cleveland's premier litigation firms. He began his career defending medical malpractice, product liability and other injury and death cases for local hospitals, Fortune 500 companies and insurance companies. Since leaving the firm, Bob has received more than a dozen seven figure settlements and verdicts for his clients.

As reported in Ohio Lawyers Weekly, in 1999, Bob obtained one of the state's top 20 verdicts of the year. In 2000, he negotiated one of Ohio's top ten reported settlements for that year. In 2002, he received a $7.5 million dollar verdict against the Cleveland Clinic Foundation for a patient severely brain damaged from experimental surgery. In 2004, Bob received an $8.9 million dollar judgment for a chemical worker burned over half of his body as a result of unsafe work conditions.

In 2006, Bob--with the assistance of Steve Keefe--received the largest reported wrongful verdict against the State in Ohio's Court of Claims. The verdict was for the family of an innocent driver killed by a state trooper during a high speed chase.

In 2009, Bob served as lead counsel in a case in which he, Ellen Hirshman and Steve Keefe received a $15.6 million dollar verdict against Metrohealth Medical Center. The verdict was for an 18 year old high school student left quadriplegic and blind due to the admitted malpractice of the hospital. The verdict was substantially more than the offer made by the hospital's insurance company.

In addition, Bob served as chief counsel in a precedent setting case in the Ohio Supreme Court holding Cities responsible for drowning deaths in public pools.

Bob has been named as one of Ohio's Super Lawyers by Law & Politics Magazine, based on a blue ribbon peer review panel, an award limited to the top 5% of lawyers in Ohio. For more, click here.

He also holds Martindale Hubbell's highest AV rating of "very high to superior" ability based on confidential surveys of his peers. He is a frequent lecturer on trial tactics and techniques and was invited to speak at the Cleveland Bar Association's 1998 Trial Superstars Series. He is a Past President of the Cleveland Academy of Trial Attorneys, and sat on the Board of Trustees for the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers.

Bob serves as Co-chair of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association's Judicial Selection Committee, which interviews and rates judicial candidates for voters. www.judge4yourself.com Bob is also the Advisory Chair to MADD's local Affiliate covering the 25 counties in Northern Ohio and represents victims of drunk driving crashes. http://www.madd.org. He served as a volunteer tutor for inner city high school students as part of the Cleveland Bar Association's 3R program.

Bob is a summa cum laude graduate from Ohio University and received his law degree from Case Western Reserve University. While there, he was a research, advocacy and writing instructor and now sits on the Law School's Dean Advisory Committee.