William B. Strubbe Strubbe

I grew up in Cincinnati, and attended Walnut Hills High School. I was fortunate to attend the University of Oregon, where I acted in plays and wrote for the student paper. I love Oregon but this is my home. I came back here after graduation.

In high school and college I worked at a lot of jobs in a direct mail advertising firm, in a sausage factory in Springdale, Ohio, and driving cabs. I worked for the Mayfield Group a firm of neurosurgeons as a "gopher" one year. I drove linens in Yellowstone Park, and worked in a trade association in Washington D.C. All of these jobs were good I performed a service, and helped support myself but they weren't what I wanted to do.

Like most other lawyers, I grew up on stories of Lincoln, and Clarence Darrow great trial lawyers, who changed the country for the better. As a boy, the man I respected more than anyone was my father. He became a successful business executive, and a community leader but he had gone to law school, and worked as a lawyer when I was young. I worshipped his intelligence, his passion and his certainty and the way he could take any good idea, and use just the right words to make that idea a reality.

I had known since at least junior high school that whatever else I did, I wanted to be a lawyer. In fact, I wanted to be a trial lawyer.

I was accepted into U.C. Law School, where I graduated in the class of 1979. While finding work was a little easier then than it is now, it wasn't easy to find the work I wanted. I worked for the State of Ohio for a year as a hearing officer, making recommendations whether real estate agents should lose their licenses for unethical behavior. After about a year, I learned that one of my law school classmates had left his current job for work in a larger firm, and that there was an opening in the law office of Edward J. Utz. I called Mr. Utz, and he hired me.

Ed Utz who died over 20 years ago was a brilliant trial lawyer. His representation of clients was ferocious. No other word applies. He was the most demanding person I ever worked for he would call me at three in the morning asking if I had done the required court filings, would yell at me for the smallest omission, and would grill me on nearly insignificant points of law and the most minute facts before I would try a case for him.

I used to joke that I learned how to try cases not in the courtroom, but in his office. I am grateful to him for the standards of representation he passed on. But as you can guess, Ed had other issues. After working for him for a little over a year, I left and was hired by the law firm of Paxton and Seasongood.

When I started there, P&S was the third largest law firm in Cincinnati, with a little over 40 lawyers. I had the opportunity to work with some of the best young lawyers in the city many of whom are my friends today and nobody ever called me at 3 AM.

But I was still working for other lawyers' clients almost always for companies and was low on the totem pole. I needed to have my own clients that was the only way I would be able to do all I could for them. And the only way I could do that was to start my own firm.

In 1985 I started my own law office, sharing three rooms and a secretary with a couple lawyers in downtown Cincinnati. I still have the announcement framed on my wall. My office was the one without a window. I started off representing almost anyone who needed a lawyer. My uncle had recently died, and the insurance company wouldn't pay my aunt.

After I filed suit, they paid. A woman was accused by her co-worker of stealing a bracelet; the judge told me that although I had tried a great case, he thought my client was guilty but if I could get the prosecuting witness to drop charges, there would be nothing on my client's record. That worked.

I took public defender cases for a couple years, representing accused people too poor to pay for a lawyer.

After a few years, I realized that my favorite cases were civil lawsuits, and that I really enjoyed helping injured people recover money from insurance companies. I have represented injured people ever since, and I love it.

Every person who walks through my door presents me with the challenge of doing the most I can for them, of thinking through everything about their accident, their family and their situation to get the best possible result.

After a few more years, I came to a very important realization, perhaps the most important of my professional life; in nearly all cases, I do my client the greatest service not by trying their case, but by settling it on good terms. I like trying cases, and once in a while it is the only way to force the insurance company to pay the money; but my greatest joy is a happy client.+

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University of Cincinnati
J.D.,