Richard has been in private practice since 1968 and has tried numerous civil and criminal cases in his 40 plus year career. Although he no longer practices criminal law, he successfully defended two capital murder clients in back to back trials within the first year of passing the bar. Richard exclusively represents injured people, and has never represented insurance companies or corporations. He has obtained verdicts and settlements from $10 million on down.

Jason Cox is an Associate Attorney in the Litigation Department, concentrating his practice in the areas of personal injury, medical malpractice, product liability and premises liability. Mr. Cox also practices employment law, primarily focusing on Wage and Hour/Overtime violations under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and applicable Ohio laws. Mr. Cox is an Ohio native and attended law school in Columbus, Ohio. While in law school, Mr. Cox worked full time as a law clerk for Barkan Meizlish in their Litigation Department, as well as the Social Security and Workers’ Compensation departments. Mr. Cox graduated from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies, specializing in Security & Intelligence. Mr. Cox received his law degree from Capital University Law School, graduating Cum Laude, with a concentration in dispute resolution. Mr. Cox is an avid sports fan, remaining active by playing golf and ice hockey. He also enjoys cheering on the Buckeyes. Mr. Cox lives in Lewis Center with his wife, Julie, and his two daughters, Mackenzie and Charlotte.

Sandy Meizlish is the managing partner at Barkan Meizlish, LLP, with extensive experience in personal injury, medical malpractice, and product liability law. Throughout his career, Mr. Meizlish has worked diligently to represent individuals injured or wronged through the negligence of others. Mr. Meizlish is a life member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum signifying that he has won individual settlements in excess of $2 Million Dollars for his clients. Mr. Meizlish has been named to Who’s Who in the Law, as well as received the American Jurisprudence Award. Mr. Meizlish is a past editor of Bar Briefs, the publication of the Columbus Bar Association. He has been selected as a Top Attorney in Ohio by Cincinnati Magazine and the American Trial Lawyers Association has named Mr. Meizlish one of the top 100 trial attorneys in Ohio. Mr. Meizlish has been selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2013 Best Lawyers in America listing. Around the Columbus Metropolitan Area, Mr. Meizlish is heavily involved with the Leo Yassenoff Jewish Community Center (former board member), the Columbus Bar Foundation, and the William A. Barkan Memorial 3 on 3 Charity Basketball Tournament. He is a past member of the Columbus State Community College Foundation Board.

Ken is one of the founding Partners and is responsible for both the management of the firm and is the head of the Workers’ Compensation practice. He is a member of the Workers’ Injury Law Group, W.I.L.G., which is a national organization dedicated to protecting the rights of injured persons throughout the country. Ken has represented both injured workers and employers at all levels of the administrative process, including dealing with the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) as well as appearing before the Industrial Commission of Ohio (IC) since 1995. He has also been involved in litigation before the Common Pleas Courts throughout Ohio and has been involved in Mandamus Actions before the Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court. Ken is a graduate of Wittenberg University (Summa Cum Laude, 1991) and a graduate of The Ohio State University College of Law (1994). He has also taught a Business Law Class as an Adjunct Professor at Wittenberg University during 2010 and 2011 and has participated in the evaluation of Senior Business Majors final projects on several occasions at his alma mater.

Theran J. Selph, Sr., focuses his practice in the areas of personal injury, motor vehicle accidents, wrongful death, and represents injured victims throughout Ohio. Mr. Selph helps real people solve real problems everyday. Mr. Selph is conversant in Spanish, having previously lived in Ecuador.

Mr. Perez has represented and delivered results for clients in matters involving: landlord tenant, breach of warranties, insurance coverage claims, property damage matters, intentional torts, mediation, negligence claims, dog and animal bites, business litigation, construction, libel slander defamation, civil fraud, the Ohio Consumer Protection Act, personal injury, premises liability (slip and fall), contract and agreement disputes, trespass and boundary disputes, Fair Credit Reporting Act and other civil matters.

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.