About Us
Kurt Young
Attorney
Kurt got his undergraduate degree from The University of Akron with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and a certification in applied politics, essentially campaign and interest group management, from the Ray C. Bliss Institute for Applied Politics. He then graduated from Case Western Reserve University’s School of Law.
He is licensed to practice law in the State of Ohio, the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and is a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Kurt became one of the first Ohio State Bar Association Board Certified Specialists in Workers’ Compensation Law. He has argued over 19,000 hearings before all levels of the Industrial Commission of Ohio and has litigated hundreds of cases before various Municipal Courts, Courts of Common Pleas, and District Courts of Appeals throughout Ohio, on workers compensation and other areas.
From 2005 to 2007 Ohio Super Lawyer Magazine named Kurt Young as an Ohio Super Lawyer Rising Star, recognizing Kurt was one of the top 5% of Ohio's attorneys under the age of 40 or with less than 10 years in practice. In the 2015 - Present Editions, he was named an Ohio Super Lawyer, recognizing him as one of the Top 5 % of Ohio’s attorneys in the area of Ohio Workers’ Compensation Law. He has been rated as Superb, 10/10 by the lawyer rating website Avvo and is ranked as “Notable” by Martindale-Hubble Attorney rating service, recognizing him as one of the highest rated attorneys in both skill & ethics.
Kurt has served as a leader of a number of Legal Organizations, including serving as the Workers’ Compensation Chair of the Toledo Bar Association and the Ohio Association of Justice. He is also a leader on the Ohio State Bar Association’s Workers’ Compensation Committee and has served as Ohio Captain for a national organization of attorneys who represent injured workers, the Work Injury Law and Advocacy Group (WILG). He also currently serves on the Toledo Bar Association’s Doctors & Lawyers Committee and Professionalism Committee.
He is a frequent lecturer at Continuing Legal Education Seminars throughout Ohio on Workers’ Compensation Law, Election Law, Law Firm Operations, and Professionalism. Kurt has also served as adjunct faculty for the paralegal program at Stautzenberger College and the University of Toledo College of Law.
Kurt has been active in political campaigns since the age of 13. He has served roles in every level of campaign from Central Committee to School Board all the way up to Congressional and Presidential campaigns, having served as a consultant for a presidential campaign on the process to get a candidate on Ohio’s ballot for the presidential primary. He has held every role there is in a campaign except treasurer.
Kurt has been a member of the Executive Committees of his Party in Summit, Wood and Lucas Counties and the Central Committee of Cuyahoga and Lucas County. He has also served on the State Executive Committee and a delegate to both the state convention on multiple occasions and the national convention in 2012.
He has served as his party’s county party chair as well.
He has served on the Parks & Recreation Advisory Committee of Perrysburg Ohio’s City Council and served out a Term as an At Large Member of Toledo City Council. While on council he served as a member of the Finance and Zoning Committees and as the vice chair of the Water Quality, Streets and Bridges Committee and Chair of the Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Committee. While he served in the later position, he was the sponsor of the unanimously passed legislation that made Toledo’s Police Civilian Review Board a permanent body.
In 2019 he was named as one of two Democratic Members of the Lucas County Board of Elections and is now the ranking Democrat. This after serving for fourteen years as one of the leaders of the Lucas County Democratic Promote the Vote Team which recruited, trained, equipped and deployed hundreds of Election Voter Protection Observers. He has been appointed by the Ohio Democratic Party and 14 Different Ohio County’s Democratic Parties as their Board of Elections Observer also known as the Super Observer.
Along with his passion for workers & voting rights, Kurt is an avid Cincinnati Bengals fan. He was a VERY minority shareholder in the Boston Celtics as well. Along with coaching youth sports in baseball, softball, volleyball and soccer in the past. He is also a self-confessed geek enjoying science fiction and superhero movies, TV shows and books. And he once took a class online that included Stan Lee as one of its instructors on the pop culture impacts of superhero comic books and movies.
Kurt is married to Reverend Cheri Holdridge, a Hospice Chaplain and church redevelopment and planting consultant, also a lobbyist for various causes; and he is the father of two children. He and his family are residents of Toledo’s Old West End, a diverse, historic neighborhood in the central city of Toledo.
Russ Gerney
Attorney, of counsel
Russell Gerney began his legal career in 2001 as a law clerk for a small firm in Pittsburgh, PA. He graduated from the Duquesne University School of Law in June 2003 and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in October 2003. He later was admitted to practice in Ohio.
He moved to Toledo in 2005 and worked for another area firm handling Personal Injury and Workers’ Compensation court cases. He later joined us at the Law Offices of Kurt M. Young as an of counsel attorney. This means that he works for us and has his own practice as well.
For our office, Russ primarily handles Personal Injury and Workers’ Compensation court cases, along with representing disabled workers on Social Security claims as well.
In his own practice Russ represents personal injury plaintiffs, unemployed workers, and victims of legal malpractice in both Pennsylvania and Ohio. And Social Security disability applicants in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
He splits his time between his main office in West Virginia and our office in Toledo. He’s married, with two children just out of school. Russ, besides being a huge fan of his daughter’s soccer career, is an avid Pittsburg sports fan.
And over the last several years, Russ has become a published author of most thriller books. He has published three novels through Atmosphere Press: Eighty Hours; To Sleep, Perchance to Dream and The Methuselah Project. A fourth novel, Phoenix, will be published soon.
Lisa Ayala
Firm Administrator & Paralegal
Lisa joined the Law Offices of Kurt Young in April 2004, as it’s second employee. She worked her way up from receptionist and legal secretary to paralegal and firm administrator, the job she has held for the last 11 years. She graduated from Waite High School and Stautzenberger College as an office specialist.
Lisa is a lifelong East Side proud resident, who works hard for her community. She has served as a board member with the East Toledo Family Center and as a volunteer for Mobile Meals for seven years.
Outside of work, Lisa enjoys spending time with her son and beautiful granddaughter, day tripping on the weekends to out of town events, metro parks, and trying different restaurants. She loves everything Detroit including the Detroit Lions and is a Michigan Wolverines fan. Lisa loves attending concerts and comedy shows with her besties. On her way into work she hypes herself up with rap/hip hop and at the end of the work day she rides home to some mellow jazz.