Judge dismisses felony charges against former Liberty Schools Superintendent Joe Nohra

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In a ruling handed down on Wednesday, December 30, 2021, Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Ronald Rice dismissed six felony counts that had been lodged against former Liberty Local Schools Superintendent Joe Nohra earlier this year. The ruling came in response to a motion filed by Atty. David Betras arguing that the statutes under which Mr. Nohra had been indicted were unconstitutionally vague. In a well reasoned six-page decision Judge Rice agreed:

“Therefore, upon reconsideration of Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss Counts 1-6 of the Indictment for Vagueness, the Court finds by clear and convincing evidence the Defendant has presented a presently existing set of facts that make the statutes unconstitutional and void when applied to those facts. The Defendant’s Motion is well taken and the same is hereby granted.” The decision may be viewed and downloaded here: Rice dismissal of Nohra felony charges

Atty. Betras hailed the decision as a victory for Mr. Nohra and the justice system. “As we have said previously, Mr. Nohra, at the discrection of the school board, and with approval of legal counsel, took appropriate action to protect the district and the taxpayers. He should have been commended instead of prosecuted,” Betras said.

Media coverage of the dismissal may be accessed by following these links: Vindicator       WKBN     WFMJ

Atty. Betras said BKM is prepared to mount a vigorous defense against the remaining misdemeanor charges that were included in the indictment.

When Mr. Nohra was indicted Atty. Betras pledges that the BKM legal team would aggressively defend Mr. Nohra in court and in the court of public opinion. “We simply won’t allow the people we represent to be smeared or damaged by rumors and innuendo,” he said. The firm also released the following statement on Mr. Nohra’s behalf:

“Mr. Nohra emphatically and categorically denies the baseless allegations contained in the indictment handed down yesterday by the Trumbull County Grand Jury.

After being presented with credible evidence that an employee of the Liberty Local Schools was engaged in activities that constituted theft in office, Mr. Nohra, with the knowledge and approval of the members of the Liberty Local Schools Board of Education and the Board’s legal counsel, initiated an investigation that resulted in the suspect employee’s resignation from the school system.

The actions described in the indictment were conducted in conjunction with and for the sole purpose of facilitating the above-referenced investigation. The members of the Board of Education and the Board’s legal counsel approved the use of surveillance equipment before it was installed. In addition, written Board policy authorizes the superintendent to utilize surveillance equipment when necessary and with approval of the Board which Mr. Nohra sought and received.

Mr. Nohra ensured that the Board members and their legal counsel were kept fully informed during each step of the investigation, were apprised of the evidence of wrongdoing that was gathered and were aware of its outcome. 

My client is both bewildered and astounded that he now faces criminal charges for taking decisive steps to protect the taxpayers and looks forward to defending himself against these ludicrous accusations.”

Betras, Kopp & Harshman founders say addition of new equity partner Justin Markota demonstrates prominent law firm’s continued commitment to the Valley

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Attorney Justin MarkotaSixteen years after founding what has become one of the region’s most respected and successful multi-disciplinary, multi-state law firms Attorneys David Betras, Brian Kopp, and Mike Harshman announced today that Attorney Justin Markota will become an equity partner in the firm which will now operate as Betras, Kopp, and Markota (BK&M). Atty. Harshman will continue to serve as a senior advisor to BK&M.

“Since joining us in 2015, Justin has become an integral and essential member of our legal team,” BK&M Managing Partner David Betras said. “His outstanding performance in multiple areas of the law impressed us, the legal community, and most importantly his clients. His partnership is hard-earned, well-deserved and signals our ongoing commitment to the Valley.”

Atty. Markota, a Girard, Ohio native who graduated from Ursuline High School, Youngstown State University, and Capital Law School in Columbus said he is both pleased and proud to be a part of the firm Attorneys Betras and Kopp worked tirelessly to build and expand.

“In 2015, two of the area’s most prominent lawyers took a chance on local kid who had just passed the bar exam,” Atty. Markota said. “They gave me a desk, a chair, a computer, some business cards and immediately began teaching me what you can’t learn from a textbook or by sitting in a lecture hall: how to practice law in the real world.”

“David and Brian mentored me, generously shared their experience, insight, and knowledge, and allowed me to work alongside them on high-stakes criminal and complex personal injury and business litigation cases,” he continued. “The extraordinary amount of time they devoted to my continuing legal education helped me become the attorney I am today and prepared me to be their partner. I am grateful for the trust and confidence they placed in me over the past seven years and I look forward to practicing alongside them for many, many more.”

“It did not take David and I long to recognize Justin’s intellect, talent and potential,” Atty. Kopp said. “He was eager to learn, more than willing to put in hundreds of hours doing research and preparing exhibits, and he actively sought to be involved in and take responsibility for the toughest, most complicated criminal and personal injury cases being handled in the office.”

As a result of his work on those cases, which included gaining an acquittal in federal court for a client charged with a serious firearms-related offense and securing millions of dollars in settlements and jury awards for accident and injury victims, he was named to BK&M’s Complex Litigation Practice Group in 2020 and offered a partnership this year.

“Justin has repeatedly proved that he can take on and defeat the white shoe law firms, giant insurance companies, and prosecutors we regularly face in court and at the negotiating table,” Kopp said. “He can’t be intimidated or deterred from zealously pursuing justice for our clients. And that makes him both an incredibly effective attorney and valuable member of our team.”

David Betras noted that Justin’s partnership will extend a family tradition that began in 1929. “For nearly a century residents of the Valley have relied on us to meet their legal needs,” he said. “It started in 1929 when my Uncle Pete opened a small law office in downtown Youngstown. When my dad, Joe, returned from serving in World War II, he used the GI Bill to go to law school and joined him. After being immersed in the law our entire lives my cousin Brian and I launched our first firm in 1999, and now, two decades and thousands of satisfied clients later, Brian, I and our cousin Justin are ready to write a new chapter in our family’s legal legacy.”

Both Betras and Kopp said that Mike Harshman’s decision to step away from day-to-day involvement in the firm, while understandable, is bittersweet. “In 2005 Mike, David, and I began building a dynamic firm that has made a real difference in thousands of people’s lives,” Kopp said. “We will always be grateful for the advice and counsel he provided along the way, and we are pleased that he will continue to serve in an advisory role as we move forward.”

Atty. Markota’s biography may be viewed here: https://betraskopp.com/team-members/justin-markota/. He may be reached by phone at 33-746-8484.

PREP Act Liability Protections worked, COVID-19 vaccines are safe and life-saving

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Attorney David BetrasAs Brad Pitt and J-Lo know only too well, being a celebrity, a status I achieved thanks in no small part to this column and the quite fetching full-color headshot that runs with it, can sometimes be a pain in the gluteus maximus. That pain has become excruciating in recent weeks as a growing number of incredibly intense people have accosted me in public because I believe everyone should receive the COVID-19 vaccine and I support vaccination mandates.

Look, I am more than willing to engage in a fact-based debate about the pandemic and the measures being taken to end it. But I run out of patience when someone shoves their smartphone in my face while I am sitting in a restaurant eating and screams DAVID, DAVID, look at this Facebook post—thanks for that Mark Zuckerberg—and then proceeds to tell me at the top of their lungs that the vaccines contain computer chips, are made from dead babies, will alter my DNA, and render me infertile.

Well, okay, none of those things are true, a detail that has exactly zero impact on the wild-eyed disbelievers who hover around me like buzzards circling roadkill until I give up and run for the door.

A couple of days ago, however, one of the vaccine resisters who has dedicated his life to disrupting my dinner made a relatively cogent point, albeit in a belligerent manner. “Hey, Mr. Big Shot Trial Lawyer, if the vaccines are so safe, how come the government passed a law that says vaccine makers and those who dispense it can’t be sued when their poison kills and maims people? Why did they leave victims out in the cold? They did it because they know the death toll is going to be in the millions, that’s why.”

COVID Vaccination Rates, U.S. and OhioSo, my tormenter is right about one thing: the federal government has extended nearly total liability immunity to manufacturers, distributors, prescribers, and dispensers of products developed to treat, diagnose, or prevent the onset of COVID-19.

But it is important to remember that the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP) which provides the immunity was not enacted specifically to protect the makers of COVID-19 vaccines. It was enacted by Congress and signed into law by George W. Bush in 2005 in the wake of a serious bird flu outbreak. The rationale for the law was simple: the liability shield would give drug makers the protection they needed to respond quickly and effectively to a public health crisis.

When Coronavirus hit, the law worked exactly as planned. On February 4, 2020, the Trump Administration declared COVID-19 to be a public health emergency and invoked PREP. Within months the first vaccines were ready for use. Today, 191 million Americans have been vaccinated, and due in large part to vaccine mandates imposed by employers, the spread of the Delta variant is easing rapidly.

While my anti-vax buddy was right about the existence of the liability shield, he was wrong when he said those hurt or killed by the vaccine would be left out in the cold. Anyone who believes they have suffered serious side effects from a COVID-19 vaccine is eligible to file for benefits from the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CIPC), a special fund established to provide payments to anyone who was injured by any drug or treatment related to a PREP emergency declaration. To date, while 416 million doses of the vaccine have been administered only 296 COVID-19 related claims have been filed.

Now that is a statistic that should be all over Facebook.

Supreme Court will decide unprecedented number of blockbuster cases during 2021-2022 term

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Attorney David BetrasLike kids counting the days until Christmas, attorneys, legal scholars, and jurisprudence junkies, including me, eagerly anticipate the first Monday in October, the day the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) begins its new term each year. We can barely control ourselves as we wait for the justices to decide which of the 7,000 cases submitted to them annually become one of the 150 or so they hear.

Under normal circumstances, the justices go about their work in relative obscurity because the cases on the Court’s docket, which is dominated by battles between states over water rights, business disputes, and arguments about arcane legal principles, do not impact the lives of most Americans or generate much media coverage aside from long, jargon-packed pieces posted on SCOTUSblog. Believe me, if you have insomnia, spend a few minutes on the site and you will be sleeping in no time.

This year, however, is far from normal. Although the 2021-2022 term is less than two weeks old, the Court is under intense scrutiny because the justices have agreed to hear a number of cases that may ignite legal and societal firestorms while further undermining the public’s waning support for the Court which was once widely regarded, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, as the “least dangerous” branch of government.

Entrance to US Supreme CourtChief among the potential blockbusters is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which centers on a Mississippi law which, with few exceptions, prohibits abortions after 15 weeks of gestation. Dobbs gives the Court the opportunity to overturn  Roe v. Wade which established a woman’s right to choose and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which protects that right until viability. It is, quite simply, the most important reproductive rights case to come before the Court in 30 years.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen is the first significant firearms case to come before the Court since the 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller that extended Second Amendment protections to individuals. Bruen arrives at the Court on appeal from the 2nd Circuit which upheld New York state’s strict gun licensure law which requires residents to obtain a permit to possess a firearm and totally bans open carry. A decision in favor of the Association could gut gun laws across the nation.

Like Bruen, Carson v. Makin which challenges Maine’s prohibition against using state funds to pay tuition for schools that offer religious instruction has nationwide implications. The justices will decide if Maine’s law violates the free exercise, establishment, and equal protection clauses of the Constitution. If they so hold, voucher programs across the U.S., including Ohio’s will be impacted and taxpayer dollars will begin flowing to schools that promote religion.

Other important cases include Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College which poses a lethal threat to race-based college admission programs,  CVS Pharmacy Inc. v. Doe which involves alleged discrimination against persons with HIV, as well as cases focused on national security, campaign finance laws, and Texas’ new draconian abortion restrictions.

The last time the Court ruled on this many consequential cases in one term was, well, never. Throughout history, cases of similar magnitude to the ones on SCOTUS’ 2021-2022 docket were heard and decided every five or ten years. As a result, one thing is certain: the justices will not labor in obscurity over the next 12 months.

Use of “Shadow Docket” is undermining public trust in the Supreme Court

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Attorney David BetrasThe inner workings of the U.S. Supreme Court have been veiled in secrecy since Chief Justice John Jay gaveled the first meeting of the tribunal to order 1789. Aside from hearing oral arguments and issuing decisions, the nine justices function behind tightly closed doors. The conferences in which they debate cases are conducted in private and no notes or minutes are kept, memos and communications by and between the justices are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, each justice has the sole power to release or conceal their papers, and law clerks sign iron-clad confidentiality agreements. No other branch of government is so immune to public scrutiny.

In 1955 Justice Felix Frankfurter offered this explanation for why the Court’s work must be concealed from view:

“The secrecy that envelops the Court’s work is not due to love of secrecy or want of responsible regard for the claims of a democratic society to know how it is governed. That the Supreme Court should not be amenable to the forces of publicity to which the Executive and the Congress are subjected is essential to the effective functioning of the Court.”

The veil that shrouds the Court has occasionally been pierced. Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong’s “The Brethern: Inside the Supreme Court” published in 1979 provided the first in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the Court thanks to Justice Potter Stewart who was the primary source for the book. In 2004, Vanity Fair reporter David Margolis persuaded several clerks to reveal the political machinations that led to the Court’s controversial decision in Bush v Gore and last year CNN’s Joan Biskupic used confidential sources inside the court to produce a number of pieces about the term’s most-watched cases.

Entrance to US Supreme CourtDespite these notable breaches, respect for the Court’s need to operate clandestinely has remained largely intact because even though the sometimes-messy process of judicial sausage-making has been concealed behind what is commonly referred to as the “Purple Curtain,” the end product has always been prominently displayed in the form of majority and dissenting opinions that clearly reveal the justices’ reasoning and positions. Those opinions—millions of pages of them—are the foundation of the American legal system. They are also the reason why the Court has always been held in high esteem by the public.

Unfortunately, in recent years the Court has repeatedly abandoned the slow, deliberative process that produced well-argued landmark decisions and precedents in favor of what University of Chicago Law School professor William Baude refers to as the “Shadow Docket”—unsigned opinions issued hastily without detailed explanations, often before the cases in question have worked their way through the federal district and appellate courts. The 6-3 ruling that allowed Texas’ draconian anti-choice law to take effect is the most recent and troubling example of the Court’s increasing embrace of this tactic.

I am not raising the issue because I disagree with the majority in the Texas case and others that have been decided via the Shadow Docket, but because the justice’s refusal to share their rationale for their decisions threatens to undermine both the nation’s jurisprudence and public support for the Court which, according to Gallup, has fallen below 50% for only the third time in the past 20 years.

As an attorney, a legal scholar, and a citizen who believes our judicial system is both the heart and soul of our democracy, I fear what may happen if Americans lose faith in the Court. For the good of our nation, I pray that the justices abandon the Shadow Docket and once again share their wisdom, knowledge, and reasoning with us.

BKH Sports Law Client Joe Moorhead engineers Oregon Duck’s victory over Ohio State

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Oregon Duck's Coach Joe MoorheadBecause we love our friends who are Buckeye fans, we’ve waited a few days to congratulate Oregon Offensive Coordinator and Quarterback Coach Joe Moorhead for engineering the Duck’s impressive 35-28 victory over Ohio State.
Like a number of outstanding coaches across the U.S., Coach Moorhead is represented by Brian Kopp, director of BKH’s Sports Law Practice Group who assisted him in his contract negotiations with Fordham University, Penn State, Mississippi State, and Oregon.
Coach Moorhead’s game plan garnered special recognition on Sports Illustrated’s website which posted an in-depth analysis of the Duck’s spilt zone run-pass option. According to SI, Coach Moorhead’s new take on the classic offense wreaked havoc on the Buckeyes. Check out the SI post here: https://www.si.com/…/oregon-split-zone-rpo-triple…
And check our Facebook page, websites, and Instagram account for updates on our sports clients along with news and info on college and pro football from Brian and Arturo Uzdavinis who played ball at Tulane and in the NFL.
It’s going to be a great season, we invite you to spend it with us.

From exploding Pintos to out of control Teslas, trial lawyers fight to make cars safer

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Attorney David BetrasOn August 10, 1978, three teenage girls, sisters Lyn and Judy Ulrich and their cousin Donna traveling to volley practice on Route 33 in Goshen, Indiana were incinerated when the gas tank in their 1973 Ford Pinto exploded after the vehicle was rear-ended by a van. Technically speaking, they were killed in an auto accident. In reality, however, they were murdered by corporate greed.

That is because Ford executives, including President Lee Iacocca, knew the Pinto was a four-wheeled death trap. Rushed into production in 1970 after only two years of development and testing, the Pinto was Ford’s response to the influx of foreign-made subcompact cars into the American market that began in the late ‘60s. During the design process company engineers sounded alarms about the gas tank which was, for a number of reasons, vulnerable to rupture in low-speed rear-end collisions. They were also concerned because a large empty space behind the backseat allowed the entire back third of the car to crumple, wedging the body and frame tightly against the car doors, making them virtually impossible to open.

Fixing the lethal combination of an exploding gas tank and jammed doors would have cost the company $15 per Pinto. Iacocca’s response: “Safety doesn’t sell.” Not surprisingly, the boss’ attitude permeated the company when attorneys representing people injured and killed in the exploding cars unearthed what became known as the “Pinto Memo.” Prepared to help Ford block new fuel system safety standards being proposed by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), the memo’s authors estimated it would cost Ford $11 per vehicle or $137 million to comply with the new regulations. They weighed that against the $50 million in litigation and settlements costs the company would incur if the cars were not made safer. Their conclusion: “…the implementation costs far outweigh the expected benefits.“

Picture of Tesla that rear ended a fire truck.And so the company continued to manufacture and sell the deadly vehicles for more than a decade. During that time between 500 and 900 people were burned to death. The Pinto was not pulled from the market until the cost of settling lawsuits filed on behalf of the victims and the attendant negative publicity made the car unprofitable.

I was reminded of the Pinto debacle when I read a New York Times article about a series of accidents caused by Tesla’s autopilot system. The story focused on the death of 22-year-old Naibel Benavides who was killed when a Model S in autopilot mode traveling 66 MPH on a city street ran a stop sign and slammed into the parked Chevy Tahoe in which she was sitting. The car’s brakes were never applied.

While a Tesla is as different from a Pinto as the Wright Brothers’ plane is from an F-16, the cause of the crashes that killed the Ulrich’s and Ms. Benavides are the same: placing pursuit of profit ahead of people. Unlike Ford, GM, and other carmakers who use technology to restrict their systems to divided highways where there are no stop signs, traffic lights or pedestrians, Tesla allows drivers to use autopilot anywhere and everywhere. The results are predictable and tragic: the number of accidents involving Tesla’s system is skyrocketing.

And I suspect that lawsuits filed by victims are the only thing that will stop the carnage.

Every time I think of the victims we represent or read reports about companies who place no value on human life, I am reminded of why I went to law school, why I go to work every day, and why we should all fight to preserve the civil justice system that makes our world a safer place to live.

You have the right to remain silent…Use it because what you don’t say can’t be used against you in a court of law.

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Attorney David BetrasIf you have viewed Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, Law and Order Organized Crime, Law and Order LA, Law and Order Def Comedy Jam or one of the dozen or so other iterations of the franchise, you have undoubtedly heard a cop recite the following to a suspect as they slap on the cuffs:

You have the right to remain silent.

Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law

You have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him or her present while you are being questioned.

If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you before any questioning if you wish.

You can decide at any time to exercise these rights and not answer any questions or make any statements.

Do you understand each of these rights I have explained to you? Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to us now?

Just a hint: the answer to the last question is always “no.” I will expand on this point shortly.

After watching Lenny Briscoe “Mirandize” a couple thousand criminals, people think they understand what the warning means. Believe me, they do not because this area of the law, like most, is extremely complicated. And that explains why 90% of criminal cases are solved when people who think they know their rights tell on themselves.

Man in handcuffsFor starters, according to the Supreme Court’s 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, law enforcement officers do not have to issue a Miranda warning unless they are conducting a custodial interrogation. In plain English, that means suspects do not have to be advised of their right to keep their yap shut unless and until they have been deprived of their freedom of action in a significant way.

In light of this fact, police officers often delay placing a suspect in custody and tell them they are free to go. They then begin asking questions that can lead to an arrest. For example, a police officer stops a driver who is swerving and asks, “Have you had anything to drink tonight?” More often than I care to remember, the driver, who I am almost invariably standing next to in front of a judge, will answer, “Well, I’ve had a couple of beers,” as if the officer will be satisfied by the qualifier “couple of beers” and happily send the driver on his or her way with a friendly wave.

Uhm, not so much. At that point, the officer, who was not required to issue a Miranda warning when he posed what amounts to the $10,000 dollar or so question, will ask the driver to exit the car, submit to a field sobriety test, and then a breathalyzer exam. At the end of the process, the driver will be arrested and Mirandized—which does not mean much at that point.

So, here are the takeaways from this week’s column:

First,  if you are stopped by law enforcement and questioned you are under no obligation to do anything other than provide your name and ID.

Second, remember, the police will delay placing you in custody so they can use what you say to establish probable cause for arrest.

Third, your pre-arrest statements are admissible in court.

Fourth: Shut up. What you do not say cannot be used against you.

Ohio Supreme Court says hijacking law firm names to drive Google results is a deceptive practice…

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Attorney David BetrasI am the managing partner of this law firm which means I am a businessman, which means I am an advertiser. I understand that some people are appalled and offended by attorneys who market their services and are fond of referring to personal injury attorneys as ambulance chasers.”

That is ironic for two reasons: first, because the term was coined in the days when attorneys were forced to contact potential clients and their families directly because the bar was barred from advertising and, second because the pejorative is used regularly by the folks who run or work for mammoth insurance companies that spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year on marketing.

Talk about hypocrites. I guess it is ok for Allstate to spend $500 million annually to convince accident victims that they are in good hands, but I am a ghoul for spending less than one-two thousandth of that to tell them the company is using those hands to pick their pockets.

Go figure.

But I digress. What I really want to discuss in this column is the way marketing in my profession has evolved since 1977, the year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that lawyer advertising was commercial speech entitled to protection under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Immediately after the decision in Bates v. Arizona was announced law firms began using every available advertising medium to contact clients including television, radio, billboards, direct mail, and the Yellow Pages. For readers too young to remember, the Yellow Pages were the business directory section of something known as a phone book—a thick printed directory that listed every phone number and address in a community. Think of it as a printed version of Google, only much more difficult to use.

Anyway, because the phone book was the way most people obtained phone numbers for businesses, competition for the highly visible and easily accessible parts of the directory including the covers was fierce. Attorneys often paid tens of thousands of dollars for the coveted spots which explains why every Yellow Pages sales rep back in the day drove a Porsche, Cadillac, or Corvette.

Today, the Yellow Pages have been replaced by Google, Yahoo, Bing, and YouTube. The bidding wars for frequently searched keywords like “accident attorney” are every bit as fierce as the battles that raged for prime placement in the phone book with one major difference: the competitors cheat by doing things like purchasing the names of other law firms.

Here is how it works: a person who has been injured wants to contact my firm. They search for Betras, Kopp & Harshman. The result comes back in a millisecond, but the phone number and website that pops up belong to the law firm that is paying the most for our name on that day. So instead of calling us, the potential client calls one of our competitors.

I think the practice is dishonest. The Ohio Supreme Court agrees and recently issued an opinion that said using another firm’s name to drive traffic to a law firm’s own site “may constitute conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation,” and is an act “…designed to deceive an Internet user.”

I applaud the Court’s ruling. Now, if we could just get the justices to force Nationwide to admit they are not on our side…

BKH Welcomes Attorney Arturo T. Uzdavinis , Tampa Native, Jesuit High Graduate Is Newest Member Of Firm’s Impressive Legal Team

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Attorney Arturo UzdavinisAttorney Arturo Uzdavinis is the newest addition to Betras, Kopp & Harshman’s impressive, multi-talented legal team. A native of Tampa, Florida, Attorney Uzdavinis graduated from Tampa Jesuit High School before attending Tulane University where he earned his Bachelor of Science in Management Degree. He received his Juris Doctorate from Barry University’s Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law, graduating Cum Laude in December 2020.

A standout football player at Tulane where he appeared in 48 games and was named to the schools 3.0 Club and the 2014-15 American Athletic Conference All-Academic Team, Arturo was signed as a free agent by the NFL’s Houston Texans in 2016. He spent time with five other NFL squads over the next two years before being encouraged by Atty. Brian Kopp to pursue a legal career. He clerked at BKH while attending law school and joined the firm after passing the Florida Bar Exam in February 2021.

Arturo brings a distinguished legal pedigree to BKH.  His great grandfather, Hector Reichard Zamora, was the oldest practicing attorney in Puerto Rico when he passed away in 2008. His grandfather, Hector Reichard de Cardona, served as Attorney General of Puerto Rico from 1981 through 1983 and is now senior partner at Reichard & Escalera, LLC, a multi-disciplinary law firm headquartered in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“Identifying, recruiting, and mentoring young, talented attorneys who have a zeal for the law is one of BKH’s primary goals,” Atty. Brian Kopp, leader of BKH Complex Litigation Practice Group said. “In addition to those attributes, Arturo’s deep roots in, devotion to, and understanding of our community are incredibly valuable assets that will strengthen our firm and benefit our clients. Chris Knopik, Doug Titus, David Betras, and I are all pleased that he accepted a position with us and we look forward to practicing with him for many, many years.”

“I could not have found a better place to begin my career,” Arturo remarked. “Because BKH is a ‘boutique’ rather than a large, tall-building firm I will have the opportunity to observe and learn from attorneys who possess an extraordinary depth and breadth of knowledge and experience in multiple fields each and every day. Working with Chris, Doug and Brian will enable me to hone my skills and become the type of lawyer my great-grandfather and grandfather would want and expect me to be.”

Arturo is a member of the Florida Bar Association, National Football Players Association, and Knights of Colombus. He and his wife, Sydney were married in February 2020 and reside in Tampa, Florida with their six-month-old daughter, Ruth Beatriz.