Steve Shane is proud to claim that he was born and raised in New York City. Mr. Shane graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1967 with a BA degree. He then attended the University of Cincinnati College of Law but before graduating served in the United States Army where he received an honorable discharge. Mr. Shane passed the bar of Ohio and New York. His first job out-of law school was as an Assistant District Attorney where he assisted in the prosecution of numerous misdemeanor cases. From there he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where he began a private practice primarily as a criminal defense attorney defending major felony cases. In his first defense of a murder case in 1979 (State vs. Camper) Mr. Shane won an acquittal of the murder charge based on an insanity defense.

The 1975 case of Mueller vs. The Provident Bank was Mr. Shane’s first foray into the consumer class action field in which he and his partner, John Rebel, sued the Provident Bank for its violation of Ohio’s Retail Installment Sales Act in failing to give a proper rebate of unearned finance charge to consumers when they prepaid their obligations. The case of Webster vs. International Harvester, 367 N.E.2d 924 (1977), another case involving Ohio’s Retail Installment Sales Act, helped to establish that when payment in full of an obligation occurred within the first ten days of the installment period the consumer was entitled to a rebate of the unearned finance charge.

Attorney Steve Shane’s testimony before the Atomic Safety Licensing Board, among others, contributed to former CGE’s failure to obtain a license for a nuclear plant in nearby Moscow, Ohio.

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In one of the earlier reported cases involving the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Morris vs. Credit Bureau of Cincinnati, 563 F.Supp. 962 (S.D. Ohio 1983), Mr. Shane was able to establish that a consumer’s damages consist of not just of pecuniary loss but of certain intangible elements such as emotional distress which typically results from the frustration one experiences from unsuccessfully trying to rid their credit file of inaccurate and false information.

Throughout almost 40 years of practice Mr. Shane has filed and settled numerous  cases on behalf of consumers involving Car Dealerships, Banks, Finance Companies, Payday Lenders, Credit Reporting Agencies and Furnishers and Debt Collectors for their violation of state and federal consumer laws.