Joseph J. Zelasko (Joe)

Associate

Columbus + 1.614.281.3810

Joe Zelasko represents clients in complex commercial disputes in state and federal courts and in arbitral proceedings. He focuses his practice on difficult commercial litigation with an emphasis on the defense of product liability, mass tort, and construction cases. Joe also has represented clients in a number of other industries, including sports and higher education.

Joe has significant experience representing commercial defendants in complex proceedings, including federal MDLs (multidistrict litigations), coordinated state proceedings, and consolidated multiplaintiff cases. Joe excels in all phases of litigation and has robust experience working with experts in a variety of fields, including engineers, statisticians, historians, marketing and advertising professionals, and many types of medical professionals. Joe's experience includes work for Sherwin-Williams, Abbott Laboratories, Fluor, Nationwide Realty Investors, Cardinal Health, the University of Notre Dame, and the Big Ten Conference.

Joe also maintains an active pro bono practice focused on immigration law. He has represented individual clients and an immigrant justice organization before the immigration courts and the United States Courts of Appeals. Prior to joining Jones Day, Joe clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

Experience

  • Cardinal Health persuades Sixth Circuit to uphold Ohio District Court's remand order in insurance coverage actionJones Day prevailed in a Sixth Circuit appeal on behalf of Cardinal Health, Inc.
  • Wells Fargo-led syndicate of lenders successfully negotiate secured $1.1 billion restructuring credit facility for Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT)Jones Day represented Wells Fargo Bank, National Association (“Wells Fargo”), as administrative agent, in connection with the Chapter 11 financial reorganization plan of Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (“PREIT”), a publicly traded real estate investment trust that owns and manages a portfolio of shopping malls totaling over 23 million square feet of retail space.
  • Venezuelan cousins fleeing political persecution win withholding of removalOn March 17, Jones Day obtained withholding of removal for pro bono clients S and O, twenty-year-old cousins who had been persecuted by the Maduro regime in Venezuela.