McCullough, Carlee

Eric Zagrans is an experienced trial and appellate litigator and nationally recognized expert in the fields of federal jurisdiction, class actions, constitutional law, and governmental liability. His practice has concentrated on complex business litigation, primarily accountant liability and financial services, securities and D&O, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, white collar defense and corporate investigations, antitrust and trade regulation, professional liability and malpractice, mass tort and products liability, ERISA, bankruptcy, and health care and pharmaceutical litigation, for more than 28 years.

Eric argued a tax appeal in the United States Supreme Court during its October 2004 term and filed amici curiae briefs in the case. His industry experience includes matters involving the accounting, capital markets, legal, electric power, education, health care, pharmaceutical, nursing home, sports and entertainment, construction, engineering, technology and telecommunications, transportation, environmental and major home appliance industries.

He also has considerable experience dealing with corporate audit committees, broker/dealer disputes, RICO claims, fiduciary duty litigation, attorney ethics and malpractice, land use planning, art fraud, asbestos and berylliosis claims, wrongful death actions, Stark II, self-dealing, fraud and abuse issues, and nursing home liability.

Eric was formerly Associate General Counsel of Ernst & Young and national director of litigation for its predecessor, Ernst & Whinney. He taught courses in federal procedure, federal jurisdiction and advanced constitutional law, among other subjects, at Case Western Reserve University Law School and Cleveland State University Law School for almost 20 years.

He has been a member of the American Law Institute since 1987 and has been active in many of its litigation-related projects during the past 18 years. In 1997 he obtained board certification as a civil trial specialist, requiring among other criteria a minimum number of jury trials litigated to verdict.

In addition to the United States Supreme Court, he has handled cases in the Ohio and California Supreme Courts, and in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the D.C., Second, Fourth, Sixth and Ninth Circuits. Eric has been engaged by the U.S. Government and by private parties as an expert witness in nine professional liability and mass toxic tort cases.