Jeff is a Forest Hills parent.

He and Abby have two kids, both of whom have attended Forest Hills schools since kindergarten. They moved into the district from Mt. Washington in 2013 specifically for Forest Hills schools. Jeff and Abby are actively involved in their kids’ schools, first at Maddux, and now at Nagel and Anderson.

Jeff has been a classroom reader, a lunch companion, a book fair aide, a learning commons helper, a Camp Kern parent, a concession salesperson, a Maddux Runs kid wrangler, and a panelist at Community Partnership events. He’s chaperoned too many field trips to count. He has taken students to attend court proceedings and tour the courthouse, and then helped bring the court of appeals to Anderson High School for live appellate arguments. He knocked hundreds of doors in support of the latest school levy. Jeff and Abby’s kids are active in dance, soccer, art, music, and their own volunteer and service projects both inside and outside of school. Abby is a physician at UC Health, where she’s the medical director of the resident-faculty internal medicine-pediatrics clinic. She cares for patients of all ages in both her clinic and the hospital, and helps teach new doctors how to do the same. 

Jeff attended public schools K through 12 in northeast Ohio. After college in Cleveland, he and Abby attended UC for law and medical school.

Jeff is active in the community.

In addition to volunteering in the schools, Jeff is on the Board of Directors of the Forest Hills Foundation for Education, which raises money to support programs and opportunities in all nine Forest Hills Schools. He serves on the Foundation’s Governance Committee and Grants Committee, and as its unofficial parliamentarian. Jeff has served on the Anderson Township Board of Zoning Appeals since 2019; in early 2025 he was reappointed by the Anderson Township Trustees to another five-year term. He’s an active member of several local, state, and national bar associations. If he’s not at a board meeting or driving kids to practice or class, you might find him playing trivia with friends, birding in a local park, or taking photographs.

Jeff is an advocate
—both personally and professionally.

He has attended school board meetings for over half a decade and regularly speaks and writes about issues pending before the board, including curriculum, facilities, finances, staffing, and student and district accomplishments. Jeff has engaged in community discussions relevant to our schools in our local media. Jeff has repeatedly addressed the board about communication with the public and each other, transparency, collaborative decision-making, and strategic planning. He has sued public officials, and won, when they refuse to do the public’s business in public. He speaks regularly on First Amendment and other legal issues. He has testified multiple times in the Ohio House and Ohio Senate, and recently helped enact court-reform legislation that was twelve years in the making.

Jeff is a problem-solver.

He’s a partner in the Anderson office of SSP Law, where he’s practiced for 16 years in civil, commercial, and real estate litigation and appeals, and First Amendment defense. He represents neighbors and friends, businesses big and small, and groups of all types and sizes. He’s litigated in state and federal courts from New York City to Salem, Oregon, and everything in between. Lawyering requires understanding complex issues quickly, communicating about them clearly, identifying risk and opportunity, and working with both allies and opponents to make the best possible decisions and achieve the best possible outcomes.