Kranz
COLUMBUS, Ohio – On July 1, Toledo attorney Michelle L. Kranz began her term as 2023-24 President of the Ohio State Bar Association. A resident of Bowling Green, Kranz served as an officer of the bar association in the post of president-elect for the 2022-23 bar year.
“I am honored to become the next president of the Ohio Bar and I look forward to my year as leader during a time of great change and potential for the legal profession,” Kranz said. “As an attorney with an urban practice who is from a rural community, I am excited to bring my unique perspective to this role as we continue the bar’s important work in ensuring access to justice for all Ohioans and advancing the legal profession through the thoughtful adoption of emerging technologies.”
Kranz is a founding partner of the firm of Zoll & Kranz LLC in Toledo. She has been a plaintiff’s lawyer for the entirety of her practice – over 30 years – and devotes the majority of her time to complex consolidated litigation, advocating for patients injured by medical devices and prescription medications. Throughout her career, she has held multiple leadership positions in mass tort litigations.
Kranz has extensive leadership experience in professional organizations, including the Ohio Bar. From 2017-19 she served on the Ohio Bar policy-making body, the Council of Delegates. She was then elected by her peers to serve on the Ohio Bar Board of Governors as the representative for attorneys in District 4, which includes Lucas, Ottawa and Sandusky counties. In the past year, she was appointed to serve as chair of the Ohio Bar Rural Practice Gap Task Force, which aims to find ways to provide rural Ohio communities with improved access to legal help.
Kranz is a past president of the Toledo Bar Association, having served in that role from 2015-16. She serves on the board of the Ohio State Bar Foundation and as a trustee for the Toledo Bar Association Foundation. In her community, she serves on the board of directors of the National Civil Justice Institute (formerly the Pound Institute), a national legal think tank, and on the board of directors of Susan G. Koman of Northwest Ohio.
Kranz is originally from Clark County, Ohio, and obtained her undergraduate degree from Miami University in 1990. She graduated from the University of Toledo College of Law with her law degree in 1993.
She is AV Peer Review Rated 4.9 out of 5 on Martindale-Hubbell and is also listed as one of the “Top 100 Trial Lawyers” by the American Trial Lawyers Association. She was designated “Lawyer of the Year” in the practice area of Personal Injury Litigation-Plaintiffs in Toledo by Best Lawyers for 2019. Kranz was also selected to Super Lawyers in 2020, Top Rated Class Action & Mass Torts Attorney in Toledo.
She resides in Bowling Green with her husband, Dean, and two children. On their family farm, they raise and show prize beef cattle and are active in 4-H, Future Farmers of America and the national breed associations of Shorthorn, Angus, Maine Anjou and Chianina.
Kranz will head the 2023-24 leadership team made up of the association’s Chief Executive Officer Mary Amos Augsburger, immediate Past-President Dean Wilson (Roseville) and President-Elect Dan Griffith (North Canton).
