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Peter Pattakos

Peter Pattakos is an experienced trial lawyer who has consistently obtained justice for his clients against powerful corporate and governmental entities in a diversity of difficult and contentious matters. He is one of the very few attorneys in Ohio or anywhere in the U.S. who has delivered winning closing arguments to juries both in multiple civil cases where more than $250,000.00 in damages were awarded, and in multiple felony prosecutions resulting in complete acquittals. Peter has also successfully briefed and argued landmark appeals in the Supreme Court of Ohio, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and in Ohio’s District Courts of Appeals. His work has helped expose corrupt government officials and predatory and discriminatory business practices, and has led to substantial developments in Ohio and federal law providing for the protection of civil rights and employees’ rights in the workplace.

Peter began his legal career at the international law firm Jones Day, where he was part of successful representations of corporate clients in commercial contract and insurance-coverage disputes, securities, shareholder, and derivative litigation, antitrust litigation, product liability defense, and in investigations conducted by the Securities & Exchange Commission and the United States Department of Justice.

After leaving Jones Day, Peter committed himself to helping ensure that people of ordinary means receive the same top-quality legal representation as the wealthy individuals and corporations that he began his career representing. This commitment has led to successful representations on behalf of an extraordinarily diverse group of clients, including a local media personality who was assaulted by an NFL player; an attorney alleging gender discrimination against a prominent Cleveland law firm; a young man who was falsely depicted as a “wanted fugitive” on a television broadcast; a nanny whose employers retaliated against her after she refused their orders to participate in a child-sex-abuse cover up; Cleveland citizens whose petition for a ballot initiative on a controversial proposed 9-figure expenditure of public funds was unlawfully rejected by city officials; a local newspaper wrongly sued for defamation by a prominent business owner who was upset about critical coverage of his business practices; entrepreneurs wrongly frozen out of businesses they helped build; victims of sexual harassment and abuse at public schools and universities, including victims of mishandled Title IX investigations; victims of police and other governmental or institutional misconduct, including families whose relatives have suffered needless and wrongful deaths at the hands of police officers or while in the government’s custody; and various other victims of legal malpractice, medical malpractice, malicious criminal prosecutions, and other reckless, negligent, and intentional misdeeds.

Peter has also represented numerous elected officials in litigation, including judges in disputes with other public officials over the administration of their courts and the constitutional rights of the parties who appear in them. He has helped doctors, lawyers, and judges defend their professional credentials and reputations. He has defended police officers against false and retaliatory accusations of misconduct. And he has helped students of Ohio schools, colleges, and universities prevail in disciplinary proceedings, including to have unwarranted and unconstitutional discipline removed from student records.

Peter is skilled in engaging with the media when necessary to expose matters of public interest to light and protect his clients’ reputations. And when it has become necessary to resolve his clients’ claims in adversarial proceedings he has achieved excellent results in jury trials, arbitration proceedings, and in state and federal courts of appeals.

Peter is a Fellow of the The Litigation Counsel of America, an honor conferred on less than one-half of one percent of lawyers in America; he has been named to the Ohio Super Lawyers list for 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019, an honor conferred on no more than 5% of attorneys statewide; and he was named a Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2016 and 2017.

Peter is a member of the Akron Bar Association, the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, the Ohio State Bar Association, the Cleveland Academy of Trial Lawyers, and the William K. Thomas Inn of Court. He attended the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, where he was elected President of the Student Bar Association and graduated with honors for his research on constitutional law. 

Peter and his wife—who is an emergency-medicine physician specializing in public health and geriatrics research—are Akron natives and graduates of Revere High School where Peter lettered in football, baseball, and wrestling, including for Coach Joe Pappano and the fifth Revere football team (’95) to make the state playoffs in the school’s history. They live in Bath with their three children, two dogs, and three cats. Peter is a devoted practitioner of Iyengar yoga and once traveled to Pune, India to study with Geeta Iyengar. He has captained a team in the Cleveland Metro Bar Association’s lawyers’ softball league every summer since 2012 and his teams have won three league championships to date, including the Pattakos Law Firm’s titles in 2019 and 2023. His writing, commentary, and legal work has been featured in many local and national publications including The Akron Beacon Journal, Cleveland Scene, Cleveland.com, ESPN.com, The New York Times, The UK Daily Mail, The Washington Post, and The Associated Press. And most of all he is grateful for his life, family, friends, profession, clients, colleagues, and community, and to be in Ohio, the heart of it all.