Kermit J. Lind

Starting in 1969, Professor Lind taught history at Cleveland State for three years, led nonprofit advocacy organizations for 13 years, obtained a law degree in 1984, and from 1987 practiced law in Cleveland for eight more years before joining the clinical faculty at CSU|LAW in 1995. During his 16 years as a clinician, he supervised the Urban Development Law Clinic that provided legal services to nonprofit community development corporations in Cleveland’s neighborhoods. He pioneered in the use of Ohio’s residential public nuisance abatement statute by nonprofit developers who brought civil actions in the Cleveland Municipal Housing Court to abate blighted housing conditions. He was co-counsel in cases brought against big banks, Wells Fargo, and Deutsche Bank in 2008, to require their compliance as homeowners with local housing maintenance codes using nuisance laws requiring homeowners to be responsible for the harm caused by their property. In 2005 he received the Michael R. White award for public service from the Cleveland Community Development Coalition and in 2018 was awarded a key to the City of Memphis, TN by its Mayor for contributions to development of its civic charter on property blight elimination. Professor Lind helped to found the Strategic Code Enforcement Management Academy co-sponsored by the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law and Neighborhood Preservation, Inc., a community-based nonprofit development corporation in Memphis. Lind authored several law review articles prior to retirement and now occasionally writes, consults and lectures on community development law and public policy.