BIO

Kevin Francis O’Neill is an Associate Professor at Cleveland State University College of Law, where he teaches First Amendment, Evidence, Civil Procedure, and Pretrial Practice. Mr. O’Neill joined the full-time faculty in August 1996 after a year-long stint as a visiting professor. His scholarship focuses on the Speech Clause of the First Amendment, with particular emphasis on public protest and forum access issues. He is the co-author (with Howard E. Katz) of Strategies and Techniques of Law School Teaching (Aspen 2009), now in its sixth printing. 

Prior to entering academia, Mr. O’Neill served four years (1991-1995) as Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. He was responsible for supervising all ACLU litigation in the state of Ohio and trying selected cases himself. During his tenure at the ACLU, Mr. O’Neill focused special attention on First Amendment issues, reproductive freedom, police misconduct, and government mistreatment of the homeless. After leaving the ACLU for academia, he continued to serve as an ACLU volunteer attorney on First Amendment cases. Acting in that capacity, he negotiated a settlement in September 2001 that restored to Ohio Death Row inmates the traditional privilege to deliver a last dying speech.

Prior to joining the ACLU in May 1991, Mr. O’Neill was a trial lawyer at the national law firms of Smith & Schnacke (now Thompson, Hine & Flory) and Arter & Hadden (now Tucker, Ellis & West). During his seven years in commercial litigation, Mr. O’Neill represented clients from a broad range of locales, including California and Saudi Arabia. His work has spanned all phases of trial and appellate practice, including cases decided by the Ohio and U.S. Supreme Courts.

Mr. O’Neill obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Francisco State University in 1977. In the years following his graduation, he worked on the editorial staff of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, where he wrote a column on consumer affairs. He returned to Cleveland (his hometown) in 1981 to attend law school at Case Western Reserve University, obtaining his law degree in 1984.

Mr. O’Neill and his wife, Sonia Winner, have a son, Dylan O’Neill, who was born in 1991 and a daughter, Katherine Scarlett O’Neill, who was born in 1994.