Michelle L. Kranz is a founding partner of Zoll & Kranz and a Toledo personal injury lawyer who has represented plaintiffs for more than 30 years.
Since her admission to the Ohio bar in 1993, Michelle has built a practice spanning serious car accidents, truck accidents, catastrophic injuries, wrongful death, product liability, and complex civil litigation.
Based in Toledo, Michelle represents injured people and families in Northwest Ohio while continuing to litigate significant cases in state and federal courts across the country.
Her personal injury practice includes car accidents, motorcycle accidents, truck accidents, brain injuries, wrongful death, and other claims involving serious physical harm.
Her national litigation work includes pharmaceutical and medical-device cases, defective products, toxic exposures, antitrust matters, mass torts, and other cases involving substantial medical, scientific, and corporate evidence.
Michelle has received significant peer recognition for her work on behalf of injured plaintiffs. Best Lawyers has recognized her since 2017 in Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs, Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs, and Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions – Plaintiffs.
She was named Best Lawyers’ Toledo “Lawyer of the Year” for Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs in 2019 and 2023, giving her two separate Lawyer of the Year recognitions in Toledo for plaintiff personal injury litigation.
Best Lawyers also named her Toledo Lawyer of the Year for Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions – Plaintiffs in 2024 and 2026.
A Plaintiff’s Lawyer With Deep Roots in Toledo
Michelle’s connection to Toledo began before her legal career.
After graduating cum laude from Miami University in 1990, she attended the University of Toledo College of Law and earned her Juris Doctor in 1993.
Advocacy became an important part of her legal education.
Her law school experience included moot court and appellate work, including an opportunity to argue before a panel that included Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, then-Solicitor General Kenneth Starr, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
More than three decades after graduating, the University of Toledo College of Law named Michelle one of its 2026 Distinguished Alumni.
Michelle remained in Northwest Ohio as she built her practice.
She has spent her entire legal career representing plaintiffs rather than corporations or insurance companies defending injury claims.
Her work in Toledo developed alongside extensive involvement in the local legal community.
Michelle served as President of the Toledo Bar Association from 2015 to 2016.
Her service to the Toledo legal community has also been recognized with two separate Toledo Bar Association awards.
She received the Trustees Award in 2005, which recognizes a younger association member for professionalism and commitment to the legal profession, and the Robert A. Kelb Distinguished Service Award in 2018 for sustained service to the Toledo Bar Association and its members.
Her connection to Northwest Ohio extends beyond her professional work.
Michelle lives in Wood County and has longstanding ties to the region’s agricultural community.
She and her family raise beef cattle and have participated in state and national cattle exhibitions. In 2018, Michelle and her husband were recognized with Wood County’s Friend of 4-H Award for their support of the local 4-H community.
Her experience in rural Northwest Ohio later became relevant to her statewide work addressing access to lawyers in communities where the number of practicing attorneys has declined.
Toledo Car Accident and Personal Injury Practice
Michelle represents plaintiffs in personal injury cases involving car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle crashes, traumatic brain injuries, wrongful death, defective products, and other serious injuries.
Michelle brings decades of plaintiff litigation experience to those disputes.
Michelle’s litigation experience includes working with complex medical and technical evidence, expert witnesses, extensive discovery, disputed causation, and substantial damages claims.
She has represented plaintiffs against corporations, manufacturers, insurers, and other defendants with significant litigation resources.
More Than 30 Years of Plaintiff Litigation
Michelle has represented plaintiffs throughout her legal career.
Her cases have involved injuries caused by motor vehicle collisions, medical devices, prescription medications, consumer products, toxic substances, and alleged corporate misconduct.
Many have required the development of medical, scientific, engineering, regulatory, and economic evidence alongside the facts specific to an individual client’s injuries.
Michelle has extensive experience taking and defending depositions, working with expert witnesses, reviewing technical and medical evidence, conducting discovery, evaluating damages, negotiating resolutions, and preparing disputed cases for litigation.
Her practice has also taken her into federal courts throughout the country.
Michelle is admitted to practice before Ohio courts, the U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Ohio, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the Sixth and Seventh Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.
Martindale-Hubbell has awarded Michelle an AV Preeminent peer-review rating, its highest peer-rating designation.
National Complex Litigation and Court-Appointed Leadership
Michelle has extensive experience in multidistrict litigation, coordinated proceedings, product-liability cases, pharmaceutical litigation, class actions, antitrust matters, and other complex civil cases.
Federal courts have appointed Michelle to leadership positions in major proceedings involving injured plaintiffs.
Those roles have placed her alongside lawyers from across the country in cases requiring coordinated discovery, expert development, motion practice, case management, settlement administration, and communication with large groups of plaintiffs.
Selected leadership roles include:
East Palestine Train Derailment Litigation: Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee and Liaison Counsel
Gilead Tenofovir Cases: Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee
Testosterone Replacement Therapy Products Liability Litigation: Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee and Common Benefit Committee
DePuy ASR Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2197: Plaintiffs’ Liaison Counsel and Settlement Oversight Committee
Biomet M2a Magnum Hip Implant Litigation, MDL No. 2391: Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee
Text Messaging Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 1997: Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee
Michelle has also participated in litigation involving Taxotere, 3M Combat Arms earplugs, transvaginal mesh, Pradaxa, Zoloft, Actos, Zimmer Durom hip implants, Yasmin and Yaz, Heparin, Vioxx, Sulzer orthopedic implants, polyurethane foam antitrust claims, and other pharmaceutical, medical-device, product-liability, and antitrust matters.
Her work in complex litigation has required coordination with physicians, scientists, economists, engineers, regulatory experts, corporate witnesses, and attorneys across multiple jurisdictions.
The underlying focus has remained consistent throughout her career: representing people seeking accountability for serious injuries.
Leadership in the Toledo and Ohio Legal Communities
Michelle has held leadership positions at the local, state, and national levels of the legal profession.
She served as President of the Toledo Bar Association from 2015 to 2016.
She later served on the Ohio State Bar Association Board of Governors and Council of Delegates before becoming President of the Ohio State Bar Association for the 2023-2024 term.
During her presidency, Michelle chaired the Ohio State Bar Association’s Rural Practice Gap Task Force.
The task force studied attorney shortages in rural Ohio and developed recommendations addressing recruitment, mentoring, legal education, financial support, and access to legal services in communities with declining numbers of practicing lawyers.
As of August 1, 2026, Michelle serves as President of the National Civil Justice Institute. She is also a Distinguished Life Fellow-Counselor of the Ohio State Bar Foundation and has served as a Trustee of the Foundation.
Her professional service has also included involvement with the Toledo Bar Association, Toledo Bar Foundation, Ohio Association for Justice, American Association for Justice, and other organizations focused on the legal profession and civil justice system.
