Ohio Fifth District Court of Appeals
Judge Craig Baldwin was appointed to the Fifth District Court of Appeals in 2013. He was elected to the position in 2014 and again in 2016. Prior to his time on the appellate court, Judge Baldwin served eight years as a judge in the Licking County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division. An attorney since 1992, Judge Baldwin was a partner with the law firm of Jones, Norpell, List, Miller and Howarth. In 2001 he was appointed by the Licking County Commissioners as director of the Licking County Child Support Enforcement Agency until his election as judge in 2004. He was re-elected as judge in 2010.
Judge Baldwin obtained his Juris Doctor from Capital University, Bachelor of Arts degree from Ohio University and pursued graduate degree work in public administration at Ohio University.
Judge Baldwin has served by assignment on the Ohio Supreme Court. Judge Baldwin is a former chair of the Ohio Supreme Court’s Commission on the Rules of Superintendence, a member of the Licking County Bar, Stark County Bar and Ohio State Bar Associations. In 2012 he was appointed to the Ohio Supreme Court’s Task Force on the Funding of Ohio Courts. Judge Baldwin is also a frequent instructor at the Ohio Judicial College.
Judge Baldwin is a member of the Newark-Heath Rotary and a board member of the Licking Memorial Hospital. He is married and has two children.
United States District Judge, Southern District of Ohio
Douglas R. Cole was nominated for the position in May 2019 by President Donald J. Trump and confirmed by the Senate in December 2019. Immediately before joining the bench, Judge Cole was a founding partner at Organ Cole, a litigation boutique in Columbus, Ohio.
Judge Cole received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he graduated with High Honors and Order of the Coif, was an Olin Fellow in Law & Economics, and was a member of the editorial board of the University of Chicago Law Review. He clerked for Judge Frank H. Easterbrook on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit before joining Kirkland & Ellis in its Chicago office. He has served as a professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and at the Michael E. Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University, where he taught in the fields of business law, law & economics, and intellectual property. From 2003-2006, he was the State Solicitor for the State of Ohio. In that capacity, he argued five cases at the United States Supreme Court, and multiple cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the Ohio Supreme Court. Before joining Organ Cole, Judge Cole was a litigation partner at the Columbus office of Jones Day, where he practiced in the Issues & Appeals group and the Intellectual Property group.
Judge Cole has undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering, mathematics, and physics, and worked as an electrical engineer before attending law school.
Associate Justice, Ohio Supreme Court
Mary DeGenaro became the 159th justice of the Ohio Supreme Court by gubernatorial appointment, effective Jan. 28, 2018.
Justice DeGenaro served nearly 17 years as a judge on the Seventh District Court of Appeals in Youngstown prior to her Supreme Court appointment. The appointed term ends Jan. 1, 2019 for a seat up for election in November 2018.
During her tenure on the Seventh District Court of Appeals, which began Feb. 9, 2001, she sat by assignment with the Ohio Supreme Court and other appellate districts.
Justice DeGenaro has served in many roles outside the courtroom. She was an adjunct faculty member for the political science department at Youngstown State University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree. She received her law degree from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, where she interned with U.S. District Judge George White.
She also was vice president of the Ohio Women’s Bar Association at the time of her Supreme Court appointment.
Admitted to the Ohio bar in 1986, she also was admitted to practice in the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals.
Prior to her judgeship, she served on the Poland Village Council.
Justice DeGenaro was appointed by the late Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer to serve during 2002 and 2003 as a member of the Voter Education & Public Funding Working Group to further Judicial Impartiality: The Next Step Forum. This court-policy initiative addressed issues involving judicial races and preserving the integrity of Ohio’s judiciary.
In 2005, she began serving as a founding member of the Ohio State Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Specialty Certification Board, which administers the specialty bar examination and certification.
Involved in a variety of community organizations, Justice DeGenaro's service includes the board of trustees of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County and the Mahoning Valley Historical Society. Past service includes the external advisory committees for the Ohio Center for the Advancement of Women in Public Service at Cleveland State University, and Youngstown State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.
Outside of her judicial duties, Justice DeGenaro enjoys reading and beekeeping. She and her husband, Steve, reside in Poland, Ohio. They have two adult sons.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court
Michael P. Donnelly is a judge on the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas General Division in Cleveland, Ohio. He first joined the court on January 3, 2005. Donnelly won re-election to a third consecutive term in the general election on November 8, 2016. His current term expires January 2, 2023.
Donnelly received his undergraduate degree from John Carroll University and his J.D. from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. He was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1992 and began working as an assistant prosecutor for Cuyahoga County. In 1997, he left that role to become an attorney at the firm of Davis & Young, where he worked until 1999. He then joined the firm of Climaco, Lefkowitz, Peca, Wilcox & Garofoli, working as a private practice attorney until his election to the common pleas bench in 2004.
In 2011, Donnelly participated in a program with the National Judicial College called "Innovative Leadership/Management Skills for Future Court Leaders". In 2012, Donnelly served as the Chair of Commission on Professionalism.
Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals
Elected to the Ohio Court of Appeals – Eighth Appellate District in 2006 and twice reelected, Judge Melody Stewart has over 30 years of combined administrative, legal, and academic experience in a number of private and public settings. She has been an administrator for a healthcare management company, a music teacher, a civil defense litigator, and a law school administrator and professor. She served as the Administrative Judge for the Court of Appeals in 2013.
Judge Stewart earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati; her law degree as a Patricia Roberts Harris Fellow from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University; and her Ph.D. as a Mandel Leadership Fellow at Case Western Reserve University’s Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.
After practicing law as an assistant law director for the cities of Cleveland and East Cleveland, Judge Stewart worked as a lecturer, an adjunct instructor, and an assistant dean at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law before joining the faculty. Her primary teaching areas were ethics and professional responsibility, criminal law, criminal procedure, and legal research, writing, and advocacy. Additionally, she taught at the University of Toledo College of Law, at Ursuline College, and was Director of Student Services at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Law.
Judge Stewart has served on many boards of trustees and been a member of various professional, educational, civic, and community organizations. She also served as a commissioner and chair of the Board of Planning and Zoning for the city of Euclid. Recently Judge Stewart served as a member of the Ohio Criminal Justice Recodification Committee. She is currently a member of the board of the Ohio Supreme Court’s Judicial College and is chair of the Ohio Capital Case Attorney Fee Council. Judge Stewart is admitted to practice in the state and federal courts in Ohio, the District of Columbia, and the United States Supreme Court.
Ohio Fifth District Court of Appeals
Judge Craig Baldwin was appointed to the Fifth District Court of Appeals in 2013. He was elected to the position in 2014 and again in 2016. Prior to his time on the appellate court, Judge Baldwin served eight years as a judge in the Licking County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division. An attorney since 1992, Judge Baldwin was a partner with the law firm of Jones, Norpell, List, Miller and Howarth. In 2001 he was appointed by the Licking County Commissioners as director of the Licking County Child Support Enforcement Agency until his election as judge in 2004. He was re-elected as judge in 2010.
Judge Baldwin obtained his Juris Doctor from Capital University, Bachelor of Arts degree from Ohio University and pursued graduate degree work in public administration at Ohio University.
Judge Baldwin has served by assignment on the Ohio Supreme Court. Judge Baldwin is a former chair of the Ohio Supreme Court’s Commission on the Rules of Superintendence, a member of the Licking County Bar, Stark County Bar and Ohio State Bar Associations. In 2012 he was appointed to the Ohio Supreme Court’s Task Force on the Funding of Ohio Courts. Judge Baldwin is also a frequent instructor at the Ohio Judicial College.
Judge Baldwin is a member of the Newark-Heath Rotary and a board member of the Licking Memorial Hospital. He is married and has two children.
United States District Judge, Southern District of Ohio
Douglas R. Cole was nominated for the position in May 2019 by President Donald J. Trump and confirmed by the Senate in December 2019. Immediately before joining the bench, Judge Cole was a founding partner at Organ Cole, a litigation boutique in Columbus, Ohio.
Judge Cole received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he graduated with High Honors and Order of the Coif, was an Olin Fellow in Law & Economics, and was a member of the editorial board of the University of Chicago Law Review. He clerked for Judge Frank H. Easterbrook on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit before joining Kirkland & Ellis in its Chicago office. He has served as a professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and at the Michael E. Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University, where he taught in the fields of business law, law & economics, and intellectual property. From 2003-2006, he was the State Solicitor for the State of Ohio. In that capacity, he argued five cases at the United States Supreme Court, and multiple cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the Ohio Supreme Court. Before joining Organ Cole, Judge Cole was a litigation partner at the Columbus office of Jones Day, where he practiced in the Issues & Appeals group and the Intellectual Property group.
Judge Cole has undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering, mathematics, and physics, and worked as an electrical engineer before attending law school.
Associate Justice, Ohio Supreme Court
Mary DeGenaro became the 159th justice of the Ohio Supreme Court by gubernatorial appointment, effective Jan. 28, 2018.
Justice DeGenaro served nearly 17 years as a judge on the Seventh District Court of Appeals in Youngstown prior to her Supreme Court appointment. The appointed term ends Jan. 1, 2019 for a seat up for election in November 2018.
During her tenure on the Seventh District Court of Appeals, which began Feb. 9, 2001, she sat by assignment with the Ohio Supreme Court and other appellate districts.
Justice DeGenaro has served in many roles outside the courtroom. She was an adjunct faculty member for the political science department at Youngstown State University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree. She received her law degree from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, where she interned with U.S. District Judge George White.
She also was vice president of the Ohio Women’s Bar Association at the time of her Supreme Court appointment.
Admitted to the Ohio bar in 1986, she also was admitted to practice in the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals.
Prior to her judgeship, she served on the Poland Village Council.
Justice DeGenaro was appointed by the late Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer to serve during 2002 and 2003 as a member of the Voter Education & Public Funding Working Group to further Judicial Impartiality: The Next Step Forum. This court-policy initiative addressed issues involving judicial races and preserving the integrity of Ohio’s judiciary.
In 2005, she began serving as a founding member of the Ohio State Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Specialty Certification Board, which administers the specialty bar examination and certification.
Involved in a variety of community organizations, Justice DeGenaro's service includes the board of trustees of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County and the Mahoning Valley Historical Society. Past service includes the external advisory committees for the Ohio Center for the Advancement of Women in Public Service at Cleveland State University, and Youngstown State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.
Outside of her judicial duties, Justice DeGenaro enjoys reading and beekeeping. She and her husband, Steve, reside in Poland, Ohio. They have two adult sons.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court
Michael P. Donnelly is a judge on the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas General Division in Cleveland, Ohio. He first joined the court on January 3, 2005. Donnelly won re-election to a third consecutive term in the general election on November 8, 2016. His current term expires January 2, 2023.
Donnelly received his undergraduate degree from John Carroll University and his J.D. from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. He was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1992 and began working as an assistant prosecutor for Cuyahoga County. In 1997, he left that role to become an attorney at the firm of Davis & Young, where he worked until 1999. He then joined the firm of Climaco, Lefkowitz, Peca, Wilcox & Garofoli, working as a private practice attorney until his election to the common pleas bench in 2004.
In 2011, Donnelly participated in a program with the National Judicial College called "Innovative Leadership/Management Skills for Future Court Leaders". In 2012, Donnelly served as the Chair of Commission on Professionalism.
Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals
Elected to the Ohio Court of Appeals – Eighth Appellate District in 2006 and twice reelected, Judge Melody Stewart has over 30 years of combined administrative, legal, and academic experience in a number of private and public settings. She has been an administrator for a healthcare management company, a music teacher, a civil defense litigator, and a law school administrator and professor. She served as the Administrative Judge for the Court of Appeals in 2013.
Judge Stewart earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati; her law degree as a Patricia Roberts Harris Fellow from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University; and her Ph.D. as a Mandel Leadership Fellow at Case Western Reserve University’s Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.
After practicing law as an assistant law director for the cities of Cleveland and East Cleveland, Judge Stewart worked as a lecturer, an adjunct instructor, and an assistant dean at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law before joining the faculty. Her primary teaching areas were ethics and professional responsibility, criminal law, criminal procedure, and legal research, writing, and advocacy. Additionally, she taught at the University of Toledo College of Law, at Ursuline College, and was Director of Student Services at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Law.
Judge Stewart has served on many boards of trustees and been a member of various professional, educational, civic, and community organizations. She also served as a commissioner and chair of the Board of Planning and Zoning for the city of Euclid. Recently Judge Stewart served as a member of the Ohio Criminal Justice Recodification Committee. She is currently a member of the board of the Ohio Supreme Court’s Judicial College and is chair of the Ohio Capital Case Attorney Fee Council. Judge Stewart is admitted to practice in the state and federal courts in Ohio, the District of Columbia, and the United States Supreme Court.
Analyzing Ohio's Judicial System and the Ohio Supreme Court
Craig R. Baldwin, Douglas R. Cole, Mary DeGenaro, Michael P. Donnelly, Melody Stewart
What methods of interpretation should Ohio courts use in constitutional matters and in cases involving...
Analyzing Ohio's Judicial System and the Ohio Supreme Court
2018 Ohio Lawyers Chapters Conference
Columbus, OH