Areas of Emphasis:
Civil Litigation
Domestic RelationsBar Admissions
Supreme Court of Ohio, 1970
Supreme Court of New York, 1969
U.S. District Court, Southern District, 1972
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 1978
Education:
Boston College Law, J.D. , 1969
City College of the City University of New York, 1966
William H. Bluth graduated from Boston College Law
School in 1969 in the top 5% of his class where he won the
moot court competition. He was a member of the Boston
College Law Review and was awarded membership in the Order
of the Coif.
After law school, William Bluth worked as a law clerk for
the Honorable Orrin Judd of the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of New York. He is presently a
member of both the Ohio and New York bars.
In 1970, Professor Bluth was hired as an Assistant
Professor of Law at Capital University Law School where he
has been employed for the past 35 years. He was promoted to
Associate Professor in 1973 and Professor in 1975. At
Capital, Professor Bluth founded the law school’s clinical
education program that provided legal services to the
inmates of the Ohio Penitentiary. In 1972, the state of Ohio
retained Professor Bluth’s clinical program to provide legal
services to all of Ohio’s prisons. The program ran for two
years and it received national recognition, including
recognition from the United States Supreme Court. See,
Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817 (1977). In the mid-1970’s, his
clinical program shifted from prisoner cases to civil and
criminal cases. Professor Bluth supervised students in the
litigation of these cases. Eventually Professor Bluth
returned to classroom teaching in the mid 1980’s. He
currently teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, family
law and evidence.
Since being admitted to practice in Ohio in 1970,
Professor Bluth has maintained a small private practice in
addition to his teaching responsibilities at Capital
University Law School. Professor Bluth has tried a wide
variety of civil and criminal cases throughout the state of
Ohio and has argued cases in the Ohio Court of Appeals, the
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of
Ohio.
In his varied practice, Professor Bluth tried a postal
robbery and bank robbery case in Federal Court where one of
the main government witnesses was the owner of a tracking
dog who turned out to be a fraud. His research on this
witness turned into a national news story and probably saved
the life of a prisoner on death row in Arizona. Later he
served as an expert witness in a capital case in Florida
concerning how this purported expert should have been
cross-examined. Professor Bluth also tried and argued in the
Ohio Court of Appeals a case that established the principle
that an employer can enforce a covenant not to compete
against an existing employee at will because the promise of
continued employment is adequate consideration for the
covenant. Professor Bluth’s argument was subsequently
adopted by the Ohio Supreme Court. In a domestic relations
case, Professor Bluth secured visitation rights for a father
whose children lived with their mother in England by
securing “mirror” orders issued by the Franklin County
Domestic Relations Court and its counterpart in London,
England so that either court could enforce the visitation
agreement. Professor Bluth has also created and advised
several small businesses, some of whom have become very
successful. |