Robert A. West, Jr.

Practices

• Business Litigation
• Personal & Succession Planning

Professional Experience

Bob is an associate in the Business Litigation practice group. He focuses his practice on representing financial institutions, charitable organizations and corporations in consumer finance, commercial and business litigation matters, including matters concerning fiduciary duties, creditors' rights, lender liability, pharmaceuticals, mass tort and toxic tort and tax controversies, at the class action, appellate and trial levels. Bob routinely defends financial institutions from common law claims and those arising under Ohio's Uniform Commercial Code, the Truth in Lending Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act. Bob has represented several major national and international financial and charitable institutions and foundations in litigation matters.

Bob is a member of the firm's Diversity Committee and LGBT Taskforce.

Bob is actively involved in the firm's pro bono work.

Bob is admitted to practice in the State of Ohio, the Northern District of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit.

Education

• University of Virginia School of Law, J.D., 2004, Articles editor, Journal of Law and Technology
• Virginia Commonwealth University, B.S., 2000

• Representation of parties in numerous litigations involving breach of fiduciary duty claims regarding investments, administration of significant trust assets and corporate governance.
• Representation of international nonprofit against breach of contract and conspiracy claims.
• Representation of Trustees in actions involving claimed breaches of duty and resulting investment losses.
• Representation of financial institutions and mortgage servicers in a variety of cases, including commercial foreclosures, commercial collection and replevin, cases alleging wrongful/abusive collection tactics, wrongful repossession, wrongful foreclosure, tortious interference, conspiracy, defamation, preference, and violations of the Consumer Sales Practices Act, Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, Retail Installment Sales Act, Second Mortgage Loan Act and the Truth In Lending Act.
• Representation of will and trust beneficiaries in disputes regarding interpretation of multiple instruments controlling disposition of multimillion dollar trust corpus.
• Representation of individuals in guardianship matters.
• Representation of large pharmaceutical company in a nationwide pharmaceutical product liability litigation.

• "EU Court Continues to Deny Legal Privilege to In-House Lawyers" · Thompson Hine Business Litigation Update, September 2010
• "Ohio's Taxing Fight Against the Florida Flight: What's Ahead" · Probate Law Journal of Ohio, May/June 2007
• "It's No Longer 'Out of Sight, Out of Mind' in Ohio: House Bill 73, A First Step Toward Relaxing Ohio's Residency Requirements While Strengthening Ohio's Nonprofits and Bolstering Ohio's Coffers" · Probate Law Journal of Ohio, July/August 2005

• Nuts & Bolts of Wills, Trust, Probate and Estate Planning, Mt. Pleasant Community Zone's Wealth Building Program, 2007
• Trends in Fiduciary Litigation, The Knox County Savings Bank Trustee Seminar, 2009