ATTORNEY BIO - Mark L. Schumacher

I worked my way through college and law school in various technical positions at hospitals in Ohio and Chicago, in several operating rooms, clinical laboratories, outpatient clinics and emergency departments. This early clinical exposure has been a huge help in my medical legal practice. I am fascinated by the application of science to human disease. I am a lifetime reader of several national journals. I believe in the scouring of every word in the medical records and a thorough review of the medical literature, because it allows you to bring the fight to the opposing party in their case. I am known as an adroit cross examiner, and I have worked hard to gain and maintain a reputation as an aggressive, ethical trial lawyer. I am proud to represent health care professionals and institutions, for they surely do far more good than harm.

After my junior year at Loyola University of Chicago, I dropped out and spent the next three years working full-time in area hospitals while living, with a group of musicians, in Chicago's Uptown area, among the poorest people in that city. That time taught me more about the broad experience of humanity and the forces that move people than any classroom experience before or after. I am grateful for those years each time I stand before a jury.

Upon licensure, I accepted a position with a plaintiff's practice, where I almost immediately had first chair trial responsibility. Because of my medical background, I handled medical malpractice cases from the start, including arguing the first Ohio case establishing hospital responsibility for monitoring physician practice before the Supreme Court of Ohio. That case has since been cited in many dozens of appellate decisions. While in that practice I originated the idea of using the Ohio Nuisance Statute to combat crack houses, in cooperation with the county prosecutor's office, an approach which was widely adopted across the state.

In the early 1990's I accepted an offer to join a defense practice with a multistate firm and moved to Dayton. In 1998 I joined Freund, Freeze and Arnold. I have defended physicians, pharmacists, nurses, hospitals and nursing homes in over one hundred jury trials all over Ohio. I have also defended manufacturers in product liability matters, including a Federal Court trial which established new product liability law on appeal to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2004, I moved to Columbus with another partner of the firm to open the firm's Columbus office. We began with three law graduates and have grown to ten attorneys.

I have a long-time interest in music from classical to inner city blues. I recently became interested in music from the swing era, finding its simple, clean melodies and sentiments interesting, when set against their wartime context.

I have an interest in history, particularly the United States from the beginning of the Twentieth Century through the end of the Cold War.

I am a member of the Human Rights Campaign, Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International. I believe that the measure of a society really can be understood by its treatment of its most wretched members.