Columbus, OH – Today, the Ohio State Bar Association Litigation Section awarded The Chandra Law Firm LLC the Best Brief Award for 2020 in the category of Private Briefs—those written and filed by private attorneys on behalf of private individuals or entities.

The OSBA established this award to educate the bar, law students, and students generally about excellent written and appellate advocacy, and to highlight appellate advocacy as a specialized practice.

Our firm received the award for our merit brief in the pathbreaking Ohio Supreme Court case of Buddenberg v. Weisdack, et al. In the case, firm client Rebecca Buddenberg won on the issue of whether Ohio's statutes R.C. 2307.60 (civil liability for criminal acts) and R.C. 2921.03 (intimidation—false writings) require a criminal convictions of perpetrators before crime victims can recover civil damages from those who did harm to them.

The Supreme Court ruled in Ms. Buddenberg's favor that, no, perpetrators need not be convicted before crime victims can pursue them for compensation. The brief, principally drafted by our former partner Sandhya Gupta (now serving the country in the Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State) and edited by managing partner Subodh Chandra, didn't just win this OSBA award—it won the case for the client and countless victims of crime across Ohio.

You can review the brief here. Written in clear and simple English, unadorned by legalese, it argues the text, structure, purpose, and history of statutes at issue.

At Chandra Law, we are proud of our devotion to detail in both written and oral advocacy. Most cases are won or lost through clear, concise, and thorough writing—organized and polished under plain-English principles. Our goal is to make the law accessible and understandable not just for busy judges, but to ordinary citizens.

Our firm invests significant time in training for our personnel from legal-writing gurus like Bryan A. Garner of LawProse. Our court filings often undergo three or four rounds of edits before they are filed, and almost always have at least two sets of eyes reviewing them to ensure we are advocating effectively for our clients.

We congratulate our former colleague Sandhya Gupta, and thank the OSBA Litigation Section for this humbling recognition by our peers of our efforts.