About Michael Leizerman
Michael Leizerman is the founder of The Law Firm for Truck Safety LLP and concentrates his practice in select catastrophic injury truck collision cases across the United States. He is a co-founder of the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys and is among the first board-certified truck accident attorneys in the country, having also helped write the Truck Accident Law Board Certification Exam. Leizerman has co-authored the treatise 'Litigating Truck Accident Cases' (West, 2006) and authored 'The Zen Lawyer: Winning with Mindfulness.'
He obtained a commercial driver's license and was the first chair of the American Association for Justice's Trucking Litigation Group. He has tried more than 15 truck and bus cases since 2002 and has achieved more than 30 verdicts and settlements exceeding $2 million, including six exceeding $10 million. He earned his B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1991 and his J.D. from the University of Toledo College of Law in 1994, and was admitted to the Ohio bar that same year.
Proven verdicts and settlements
A Jefferson County jury awarded $82,105,345.70 to Michael Shank, a motorcyclist whose left arm and left leg were amputated after a commercial truck struck him near Steubenville. The verdict is reported as the largest trucking verdict in Ohio history, in a case the defense had offered $350,000 to settle.
A federal jury in Detroit held Crossfire, LLC and its driver Logan Goodrich responsible for the April 2018 crash that killed 21-year-old Dillon Montie at a US-23 exit ramp intersection in Monroe County, Michigan, and the court entered judgment on May 24, 2023. Law360 reported that Montie's parents were awarded more than $15.7 million; the plaintiff's firm and the news service of a trucking-lawyer membership group put the total verdict at $18.5 million, and the verdict form is not in the free public record. The defense had blamed Montie for speeding, but the trial judge had already struck its cell phone and roadway design defenses as unsupported and ruled that Crossfire would answer for Goodrich's negligence. Crossfire and Goodrich then moved for a new trial, remittitur, or a present cash value reduction, and Law360 reported in January 2024 that the parties resolved that dispute on terms that are not public, and the next docket entry, on February 7, 2024, is an order docketed as a vacatur, so no judgment figure from this case is confirmed to stand and the result is published unranked. No appeal was taken.
A dump truck hauling dirt for Jurgensen Co. entered the fast lane of I-75 from a dead stop during nighttime highway widening in Warren County, Ohio, and was rear-ended by Nicholas and Amanda Poe's car, killing them both. A Warren County jury found the truck's mud-caked lights and reflective tape, its missing high-intensity lighting, and inadequate work-zone signage contributed to the crash alongside Nicholas Poe's own speed. Because Ohio law makes a defendant found less than half at fault severally liable for only its share, and bars an over-50-percent-at-fault plaintiff from recovering, only Amanda Poe's estate collected, and only from Jurgensen's 25 percent share of the jury's $16 million verdict. The Twelfth District Court of Appeals affirmed the resulting $4 million judgment against Jurgensen in 2015.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
Practice areas
Education
Bar admissions & credentials
Other attorneys at The Law Firm for Truck Safety LLP
View firm →
