Zach Klein was sworn in as Columbus City Attorney on January 1, 2018. He previously served on Columbus City Council from 2011-2017, including two years as City Council President. While on Council, Zach delivered significant wins to reopen City pools, expand substance abuse and treatment centers, create the city’s police body-worn camera program, and establish licensing requirements to clean up problem hotels.
As City Attorney, Zach has built on that experience to advance an ambitious agenda focused on protecting public safety, strengthening neighborhoods, and creating a fair, accountable justice system. He has pushed for tough prosecution for violent criminals, including $500,000 bonds for the worst offenders, while launching a first-of-its-kind diversion program that connects nonviolent offenders to treatment, housing, and employment resources, an approach proven to reduce crime and improve lives.
Under Zach’s leadership, the City Attorney’s Office has become a leader in innovation, with programs created to help keep seniors in their homes, assist low-income residents with auto repairs, and deploy domestic violence advocates alongside Columbus Police in the field. In response to the 2020 protests, Zach worked with community partners and law enforcement to create the Community Police Immersion Training Program, now recognized as a national model for improving community–police relations.
Zach continues to prioritize neighborhood safety, with record numbers of cases filed to shut down drug houses, hold bad landlords accountable, and clean up dangerous properties in neighborhoods across Columbus.
As City Attorney, Zach has made rooting out corruption and defending the rights of the City and its residents a priority by establishing the Office of the Solicitor General. Under Zach’s leadership, the City has filed litigation to hold drug companies accountable for inflating insulin prices and cheating taxpayers, clawed back millions of dollars from corporations for producing harmful “forever chemicals”, and took action to fight for residents’ access to healthcare, defend workers’ rights, and more.
When government overreach threatens Columbus or its residents, Zach takes action. He has filed lawsuits to fix Ohio’s broken criminal background check system, defended local authority on gun safety and tobacco regulations, protected food assistance for 42 million Americans, defended the Affordable Care Act, and challenged numerous federal actions taken by the Trump administration that hurt Columbus residents—and won.
Zach remains committed to Columbus’s future as the next great American city — one that is safe, diverse, and filled with opportunity for every resident in every neighborhood.
Zach grew up in Belpre, Ohio. He is a proud graduate of The Ohio State University and Capital Law School, and previously served in the White House under VP Joe Biden, state and federal prosecutors’ offices, private practice at Jones Day, and as general counsel to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. Zach also clerked for the Honorable John D. Holschuh and Terence P. Kemp for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, as well as The Honorable Stephen Shaw with the Third District Court of Appeals. He is in his third term as City Attorney. He recently hung up his whistle after 20-plus years as a Division I women’s basketball referee but remains close to the game. He lives in Clintonville with his family.
