Meet the Team at Venardi Zurada, LLP
Ryan Kraft, Senior Trial Attorney
Ryan grew up in Chicagoland where he acquired a thick accent and thicker skin. To this day, he loves hot dogs and hates the snow. In 2001, Ryan and his family moved to Arizona, where he graduated from high school and attended journalism school at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
As a journalism student, Ryan interned for the Tombstone Epitaph and Arizona Daily Star newspapers. He focused on hard news, often covering serious stories from the Arizona-Mexico border. He also co-authored a front-page feature story about prescription drug abuse among young adults. Through his work as a journalist, he learned how to dig for the truth and act with dogged persistence.
Though Ryan graduated from journalism school with excellent credentials, he chose to pursue a legal career and attended the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. During his time there, Ryan clerked for the Honorable Richard S. Fields in Pima County Superior Court and the Arizona Attorney General’s white crime unit. He also helped people to expunge their criminal records and restore their civil rights.
In 2011, Ryan graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, and moved to Oakland, where he started his legal career as a criminal defense attorney on Alameda County’s public defender panel. He operated his own firm for two years before he switched fields to civil litigation. In 2014, he became a defense attorney for a large insurance carrier, where he learned the ins and outs of civil discovery, trial, and, most importantly, how to win in civil litigation. Later, he became a partner at a defense firm in Oakland, where he primarily handled complex personal injury cases involving severe injuries. In 2023, Ryan determined that he wanted to help those who had been injured, not dispute them, and he left his partner role to become a plaintiff’s attorney with Venardi Zurada.
Areas of Practice
- Personal Injury
- Landlord-Tenant
- Tree Line and Property Disputes
- Breach of Contract
- Employment
Bar Admissions
- California, 2011
- Arizona, 2021
Education
- University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law
- D. 2011
- University of Arizona
- B.A. Journalism and Creative Writing, 2008
