Defect and Lemon Law

Born in the tiny coal-mining community of Williamson and raised in Parkersburg, West Virginia, by blue-collar working-class parents who placed a premium on hard work, honesty, and personal integrity, Bernie Layne of Mani Ellis & Layne, PLLC learned from an early age that his path to success would have to be paved with over achievement. While both of his parents grew up in abject poverty that can only be understood or imagined by those who have experienced day-to-day life in ‘coal camp’ housing in southern West Virginia, they became acutely aware of the value and necessity of education and sweat equity as a means of rising above their circumstance. It is from this culture and environment that Bernie’s parents instilled in him, and his two sisters, to never forget where they have come from and to always use their God-given talents and abilities to help people around them who are disadvantaged, hurting, disabled, destitute, or who are being abused by those in a more powerful position than themselves in society. Growing up in Parkersburg, just across the river from Marietta and Belpre, Ohio, he gained a deep, abiding respect for the hardworking people on both sides of the border. Rising from the social position of an ‘underdog,’ it isn’t hard to understand how Bernie has come to embrace these roots by becoming a highly successful legal advocate and defender of the rights of injured working-class West Virginians and Ohioans. A Strong Competitive Spirit As you can imagine, it takes tremendous family support and lots of competitive spirit to become one of only a few college graduates in his family and to become the first lawyer in his immediate or extended family. That love for competition was introduced to him as a child, by his father, an accomplished sportswriter at the Williamson Daily News. Bernie developed a love for the game of basketball and baseball and eventually earned a baseball scholarship to attend the University of Charleston in Charleston, West Virginia. As a college student-athlete, Bernie was introduced to the importance of academic and athletic discipline, teamwork, handling success and overcoming failure. As his dream of playing professional baseball faded, his commitment to personal development and higher education strengthened. Before leaving UC, Bernie was named the Ivor F. Boiarsky Award Winner, which annually recognizes the top Political Science Student in the graduating class, won a statewide award for his senior thesis, in the area of Public Law Policy, on the pitfalls and environmental evils associated with an inadequate and corrupt strip mine permitting system in West Virginia, was voted by his peers as the Student Body President and was chosen by the administration to deliver the commencement address on behalf of his graduating class, while sharing the stage with the late Senator Robert C. Byrd. Inspired to help the disadvantaged Using his undergraduate success as a springboard, Bernie went on to attend graduate school at The Ohio University, where he received a Master of Arts Degree in Sociology. After graduate school, Bernie returned to Appalachia where he worked with elderly and disabled individuals through the Title 19 Medicaid Waiver Program in Southern West Virginia. The year spent working with catastrophically injured people through Title 19 firmed his resolve and commitment to make a difference in the lives of the hardworking citizens of this state. This experience made Bernie aware of the obstacles that face disabled and poverty-stricken individuals and the myriad of statutory and legal hurdles they face, while unable to afford adequate legal assistance to address their needs. Bernie’s disappointment in the legal system and its treatment of handicapped, disabled, and elderly individuals led him to attend law school at The University of Dayton School of Law where he graduated with his Juris Doctor in the Spring of 1999. After finishing law school, Bernie remained in Dayton as a judicial extern for The Honorable Barbara Gorman, the first female judge of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. In the years following his law school graduation, Bernie has remained committed to preserving the rights of injured and disadvantaged citizens of our state and has limited his practice to cases which involve people who have been injured due to the negligence of another person, corporation or governmental body. Throughout his career, he has successfully taken on big corporate asbestos producers who exposed plant workers and pipefitters to deadly and cancer-causing asbestos fibers. He has successfully confronted coal mining companies that deliberately injured workers through a neglect of OSHA regulations and state laws designed to protect this state’s workers. Further, Bernie has successfully resolved wrongful death cases involving children, medical malpractice and poorly designed products by large corporate interests who chose to place profits as a priority over the safety of our citizens. In 2021, Mani, Ellis & Layne, PLLC expanded to a new office in Columbus, OH. For Bernie, who earned both of his graduate degrees in Ohio and has many close family members in Columbus and the surrounding towns, this was a homecoming of sorts, an opportunity to advocate for hardworking people throughout both Ohio and West Virginia. Recognized by his peers Bernie’s success and achievement have been greatly rewarded as he and his partners have built an accomplished law firm at Mani Ellis & Layne, PLLC. His professional attributes and success have also been noticed by his trial lawyer peers. In 2005, he was given the Distinguished Service Award by the West Virginia Association for Justice (WVAJ), which is a group that represents the interests of the injured and disabled in West Virginia. Attorney Layne has been a member of WVAJ and the American Association for Justice for more than a decade. He is past president of WVAJ, serving from June 2013 to June 2014. He has also served on the WVAJ Executive Committee (nine years), the WVAJ Board of Governors and as a member of the LAWPAC organization. He was recently invited to join the prestigious, Southern Trial Lawyers organization and has been apponted to The Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center where he serves on its Executive and Building & Grounds Committees. Additionally, he served a two-year stint as a member of the West Virginia Bar Association’s Judicial Campaign Advertising Committee, which sought to regulate unfair, unethical and untruthful advertising during judicial campaign election cycles. In 2013, he was appointed to the University of Charleston Board of Trustees and served on the Executive and Outreach Committees within that board. He is now serving his twelfth year on the board. In 2014, he was named Alumnus of the Year at the University of Charleston. In 2017, he was appointed chairman of the Welch Challenge Campaign, an $8 million fund-raising initiative at the school. Also in 2013, Mr. Layne received an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell, which is the highest rating attorneys can achieve from that organization. Only 2% of all practitioners nationwide earn that rating. In 2018, Bernie was selected to the West Virginia Super Lawyers list by his peers. Bernie has obtained several significant verdicts and settlements and has been granted membership in the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum. On a community level, Bernie recently completed a seven-year term on the Putnam County Career and Technical Center’s Healthcare Advisory Board, on which he worked with other community leaders to design, implement and guide the LPN Nursing Program at the school. His efforts in this area are consistent with his desire to work toward broad based community and rural health care initiatives which support healthcare for the underprivileged throughout our state’s communities.

Daniel Schlanger is a partner at Kakalec & Schlanger, LLP, where he heads the firm's consumer practice. His practice focuses on representing victims of unfair collection tactics, predatory lending, hidden fees, auto fraud, defective products, and other marketplace injustice. The firm brings affirmative litigation (including class actions and significant individual claims) on behalf of consumers and also regularly represents consumers who have been sued on significant debts, including credit card debt, medical debt, auto loans, home loans, lines of credit, personal guarantees, etc. Dan joined Kakalec & Schlanger, LLP's predecessor firm (Schlanger & Schlanger) in 2007 after working as a staff attorney at Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, where he was a member of that organization’s consumer law unit, and helped to found a program focused on wage and hour litigation on behalf of low-income workers. Prior to that, Dan clerked for the Hon. R. Lanier Anderson, III on the United States Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit. Dan received his law degree from Harvard Law School, cum laude, in 2004. He received his undergraduate degree from Carleton College, magna cum laude, in 1994.

Robert is a lifetime Lake County resident, born in Libertyville, Illinois, and raised in the neighboring Village of Gurnee. Robert attended Warren Township High School from 2001-05, where he distinguished himself in academics and athletics graduating among the highest in his class and receiving All-Conference football honors. He conducted his undergraduate studies at Illinois State University as a “University Scholarship” recipient, where, in 2009, he graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Studies. Robert was admitted to practice law in the State of Illinois on November 1, 2012. He attended law school at the Northern Illinois University College of Law from 2009-12, graduating Cum Laude in May of 2012. In November of 2012, after a brief bought working for major corporations, Robert opened Tomei Law to assist those in financial distress–specifically, representing consumer rights through foreclosure defense, bankruptcy, auto fraud, and debt collection harassment. In the fall of 2018, Robert, along with three other fine attorneys, Timothy Johnston, Alan Lenczycki, and Michael Goldberg, founded the law firm Johnston Tomei Lenczycki & Goldberg, LLC (JTLG, LLC). JTLG is a full-service law firm and in addition to an office in Gurnee shared with Tomei Law, P.C., JTLG has an office conveniently located in the heart of downtown Libertyville. Having hailed from a family with Lake County roots, it has always been an aspiration of Robert’s to practice law in the community of his upbringing. The inner drive to further that end, coupled with the desire to assist those in distress, led him to pursue a legal career in the Consumer Rights arena where he has successfully taken on consumer foes that include some of the largest banks, debt collectors, and automobile dealerships in the land and as the owner of Tomei Law, P.C. and partner of JTLG, he plans to continue that fight for justice in Consumer Rights well into the future.

Itamar "Eddie" Tehrani, founder of State Law Firm, worked his way up the chain of command in several different law offices in Los Angeles. Ranging from personal injury, to civil litigation, Mr. Tehrani has had the opportunity to be exposed to different fields of law. As such, the years of training, learning, and experience has led Mr. Tehrani to become a confident sole practitioner. Although well-versed and experienced in personal injury law, Mr. Tehrani also enjoys assisting consumers who have issues ranging from bankruptcy, to consumer debt relief, landlord/tenant dispute, lemon law, and insurance law pertaining to claims.

Personal injury is an area of law where most lawyers actively avoid trials because they know that they are not well equipped to win. Not Arno Keshishian. Arno’s experience in the courtroom means that any insurance company he comes up against knows that the possibility of a trial exists if there is no reasonable settlement. From the outset, that puts a claimant in a very strong position. Arno’s legal career started in the courtroom. While at Loyola Law School, he was the right-hand man to one of Los Angeles’ most prominent lawyers. He assisted with at least 20 trials, including high-profile cases like Michael Jackson, Chris Brown, Scott Peterson, etc. Arno was by this lawyer’s side daily in the courtroom and most people in the court system assumed he was already a lawyer – although he hadn’t yet qualified. Also, while at Loyola, his supervising attorney in the Juvenile Justice Clinic (which he participated in) was Michael Schultz – now a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge. When he passed the bar in 2010, Arno opened his own law firm and immediately got to work on trial cases. Word soon got around that he did trials in a community of lawyers who actively try to keep clear of them, and the firm started to attract referrals from attorneys who needed a lawyer to show up for a trial. Since then, Arno has averaged four trials per year and only lost once! He focuses on all of the firm’s personal injury cases that require litigation i.e., that are not settled by Zorik and the in-house insurance team.

Glen Chulsky is a practicing lawyer in the states of New York and New Jersey.

Proudly taking bankruptcy, debt, and landlord/tenant cases out of New Jersey.