Lynnette Dinkler
Lynnette grew up outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and attended Allegheny College where she studied French and English, earning her B.A. cum laude in 1992. In 1995 Lynnette graduated from Ohio Northern University Claude W. Pettit College of Law following which she sat for the Ohio Bar and was admitted on November 13, 1995.
Lynnette is a trial attorney and law director/solicitor with extensive experience defending and advising Ohio’s municipalities, school districts, boards of developmental disabilities and other political subdivisions, such as agricultural societies, health boards and water districts. She has dedicated her career to representing the interests of public entities, employers, trusts/trustees, businesses, non-profits, and individuals in state and federal courts throughout Ohio. She also appears before state and federal administrative agencies such as EEOC/OCRC, the Ohio Liquor Commission, and the State Employee Relations Board, and advises clients in a general counsel role. Lynnette has served Montgomery County as a special appointed prosecutor to defend the Prosecutor, and also to defend former Sheriff Phil Plummer, his deputies, and the County itself in several matters before Dayton’s Federal District Court.
Over the course of Lynnette’s career, she has tried over 50 civil and criminal cases. She recently defended a class action suit brought against a municipality and administered the settlement in that matter. Her appellate practice includes a case successfully briefed before the United States Supreme Court where she expanded the law for police response to an officer in crisis. She has argued four cases before the Ohio Supreme Court and has been invited to write friend of the court briefs (amicus curiae) on several high-profile issues important to her clients. Lynnette has been invited to speak to national audiences on civil rights, police policy and procedure, and constitutional law; and here in Ohio on municipal law, school law, employment law, police policy and procedure, public entity bonds, trial tactics, ethics and leadership.
In 2018, Lynnette was named one of America’s Top 100 Civil Defense Litigators for her work in the fields of civil rights litigation and government relations law. Membership is limited to the Top 100 professionals from each state in each category of practice who best exhibit excellence and the highest ethical standards in their respective professions. With these high standards, less than 1% of professionals in the United States will be selected for membership as one of America’s Top 100™ in their profession. Her peers named her to Ohio Super Lawyers (2019, 2018, 2012, 2011) and Rising Stars (2010, 2009, 2007, 2006, 2005), an honor given to just 2.5% of Ohio attorneys. In 2006, Litigation of America, a trial lawyer honorary society representing less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers by invitation only, selected Lynnette as a Charter Fellow.
Truly listening to each client to understand the facts, identify goals, and develop the plan to work with the client to achieve the goals is what Lynnette enjoys most about practicing law. Lynnette values relationships and what she learns from having the privilege of meeting people from all backgrounds through her work.
Outside of work, Lynnette treasures time with her husband and three children. They enjoy entertaining their friends, and making meaningful memories together, one after the next.