Robin M. Wilson

Practices

• Business Litigation
• Real Estate

Professional Experience

Robin is a partner in the Business Litigation practice group and focuses her practice on real estate-related litigation. She represents a wide range of clients, including individuals, public and nonprofit entities in land use, zoning, eminent domain, constitutional law and other public sector matters. She represents owners, developers, builders, corporations, partnerships, and individuals in contract disputes and business-related torts and conflicts. Robin also handles a variety of complex, high priority matters dealing with zoning decisions and First Amendment and Sunshine Act issues. In addition, she has extensive experience in litigating commercial real estate and lease disputes, as well as foreclosures, receiverships and secured lending matters.

Robin has substantial bench and jury trial experience and has successfully argued several cases in Ohio's courts of appeals. She also is experienced in the mediation and arbitration of disputes.

Prior to joining Thompson Hine, Robin was an assistant county prosecutor in the civil division of the Stark County Prosecuting Attorney's office where she represented county and township officials in zoning, nuisance abatement and other governmental matters. Before starting her legal career, Robin spent 10 years as a journalist.

Robin is admitted to practice in the state courts of Ohio, the U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Ohio, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Education

• Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, J.D., 1996, cum laude, co-editor of the law student newspaper, The Gavel, 1994-1996
• Ohio University, B.S., 1983, Journalism

• In breach of contract matters -
• Representing a landlord on a breach of contract case against a tenant restaurant owner; received verdict at trial and damages in favor of landlord for breach of lease and on counterclaim for unlawful eviction.
• Representing a developer in connection with breaches of contract, promissory estoppel and fraudulent inducement pertaining to sales contracts for development property in Lorain, Ohio. Case settled shortly before trial.
• Obtaining summary judgment in favor of a lender and servicer in defense of claims of breach of a loan and security agreement pertaining to a $25 million multiple term loan facility.
• Representing numerous lenders and servicers in defense of counterclaims arising from the Truth In Lending Act, Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act, Consumer Sales Practices Act and other secured lending and liability claims
• Representing a telecommunications company in a dispute over monies owed for consulting services provided in connection with the Federal Communications Commission E-Rate program, which provides affordable telecommunications services to eligible schools and libraries.
  
  
• In foreclosure matters -
• Setting aside a $2 million cognovit judgment against a borrower, a Chattanooga, Tennessee auto auction, and its guarantors.
• Obtaining a cognovit judgment on a $5 million construction loan in favor of a commercial lender and foreclosure of the mortgage, including assignment of rents pertaining to loft apartment property in downtown Cleveland.
• Obtaining a $4 million judgment on behalf of a lender on a construction loan after default by the owner/developer and foreclosure of mortgage and assignment of rents pertaining to the refurbishment and condominiumization of a 100-year-old commercial property with tax credits in Conneaut, Ohio.
  
  
• In eminent domain matters -
• Representing a property owner in an eminent domain action by a railway for an intermodal facility in Bedford, Ohio. After a week-long trial, the jury awarded $3.3 million in compensation for the property taken.
• Representing a county port authority agency in an eminent domain action to acquire 14 commercial properties for a planned $400 million mixed-use housing, office and retail redevelopment project in Cleveland.
• Representing a lessee who asserted rights to compensation in an eminent domain action pertaining to a shopping center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.
  
  
• In zoning matters -
• Representing a cellular phone company in an appeal by a property owner of a Board of Zoning Appeals decision to grant a variance to erect a cellular monopole in Youngstown, Ohio, with the court upholding the grant of the variance.
• Representing an intervening property owner in defense of the village of Bratenahl Board of Zoning Appeals’ upholding of a side yard variance pertaining to lake views in an appeal by an adjoining property owner.

• Co-author, "The Controversial and Evolving Issue of Eminent Domain" · Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Journal, November 2008
• Co-author, "Eminent Domain Heats Up" · Scrap Magazine, March/April 2006
• Co-author, "Negotiating the Minefields of Electronic Discovery", 10 RICH. J.L. & TECH. 52 (2004) @http://law.richmond.edu/jolt
• "Are Cybersmear Suits Worth the Effort?" · NE Ohio Crain Tech, September 10, 2002
• Contributor, "Meet the Press" · Cleveland Bar Journal, September 2001
• Employees' Cyber Behavior Could Get Employer in Trouble · The Alert, Federal Bar Association, March 1998

• E-Discovery: Get Ready to Apply the New Fed. R. Civ. P. Changes - Recent Decisions in E-Discovery that Affect All of Us, National Business Institute, December 7, 2007
• Boundary Disputes: Resolving Client Conflicts, National Business Institute, November 1, 2007
• Land Use Law: Current Issues in Subdivision, Annexation and Zoning, National Business Institute, October 19, 2007
• E-Discovery: Get Ready to Apply the New Fed. R. Civ. P. Changes - Recent Decisions in E-Discovery that Affect All of Us, National Business Institute, December 8, 2006

• Burton Award for Legal Achievement, 2005
• YWCA Women of Professional Excellence Award, 2008

• Spanish