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.
Vice President & Compliance Counsel, Capital One
Legal Policy Director, Pacific Legal Foundation
Daniel Dew directs Pacific Legal Foundation’s legal policy efforts. The legal policy team fights for individual liberty in the other two branches of government by finding principled solutions to complex problems.
Daniel has led numerous successful public policy campaigns, including home equity theft reform, judicial bias reform, emergency powers reform, and prior to his time at PLF, civil asset forfeiture reform, sentencing reform, and removing government-imposed barriers to employment.
Before joining PLF, Daniel was a legal fellow at The Buckeye Institute in Columbus, Ohio, and a visiting legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Daniel served on the Ohio Supreme Court’s Task Force to Examine Ohio’s Bail System, and Ohio’s Justice Reinvestment 2.0 Ad Hoc Committee. He has also served as president of the Columbus, Ohio lawyers chapter of the Federalist Society, and chaired the Ohio State Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Committee.
He earned his law degree from Cleveland Marshall College of Law and his undergraduate degree from Utah State University.
When he’s not battling bureaucrats, Daniel coaches baseball, trains for marathons (very slowly), is constantly disappointed by Cleveland sports teams, and keeps busy with his wife, Amanda, and their four children.
Justice, Ohio Supreme Court
On November 4, 2014, Justice Sharon L. Kennedy was re-elected to a full term on the Supreme Court of Ohio in a decisive victory winning all 88 counties and garnering 73 percent of the vote. Justice Kennedy first joined the court in 2012, having been elected to fill an unexpired term.
Prior to her term on the Ohio Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy served at the Butler County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division beginning in 1999. From 2005 until December of 2012, Justice Kennedy served as the administrative judge of that division. During her time as administrative judge, she improved the case management system to ensure the timely resolution of cases for families and children. Working with state legislators she championed a "common sense" family law initiative to reduce multiple-forum litigation for Butler County families.
When Butler County faced tough economic times, Justice Kennedy organized concerned elected officials in a county-wide Budget Work Group. Seeing the need to bring private sector financial know-how to the government, she worked to create the Advisory Committee to the Budget Work Group. Justice Kennedy served as the facilitator and led discussions between county officials and private sector leaders to analyze county finances, study and implement cost saving measures, and present business driven fiscal policy to the county commissioners.
In 1991, after obtaining her law degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Law, Justice Kennedy ran a small business of her own as a solo practitioner. While in private practice she served the legal needs of families, juveniles, and the less fortunate. As special counsel for Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery, Justice Kennedy fought on behalf of Ohio’s taxpayers to collect monies due the State of Ohio. As a part-time magistrate in the Butler County Area Courts, Justice Kennedy presided over a wide array of civil litigation and assisted law enforcement officers and private citizens seeking the issuance of criminal warrants for arrest.
Justice Kennedy began her career in the justice system as a police officer at the Hamilton Police Department. She was assigned to a rotating shift, single-officer road patrol unit working to protect and serve the citizens of the City of Hamilton. From the routine, to the heart-pounding, to the heart-breaking, she has seen it all. During her time as an officer, Justice Kennedy also worked undercover operations, implemented crime prevention programs, and later, as a civil assistant, assisted in drafting police policy and procedure for the Accreditation Program.
Throughout her career Justice Kennedy has served on numerous boards, developed and facilitated programs to address the needs of young people, and worked with judges across the state. As a dedicated jurist she has received multiple awards of recognition including: Leadership Ohio Community Leadership Award, 2016; The University of Cincinnati College of Law Nicholas Longworth, III Alumni Achievement Award, May 17, 2014; Northwest High School Distinguished Alumnus Award, April 25, 2014; named one of 13 professional women to watch by The Cincinnati Enquirer, March 17, 2013; Excellence in Public Service, June 2009; Judge of the Year, 2006; Above the Fold Award, 2002; and the Furtherance of Justice Award, 2001. Justice Kennedy was also featured in Trends in the Judiciary: Interviews with Judges Across the Globe, Volume II, published by CRC Press in February 2015.
Attorney General, State of Ohio
Dave Yost was re-elected as Ohio’s 51st attorney general on Nov. 8, 2022, receiving more votes than any other attorney general in the state’s history.
During his first term as the state’s chief legal officer, he quickly gained a national reputation as a fearless advocate for the rule of law — or, as he puts it, “the same rules for everybody.”
Yost’s goal is to “do big good” for the people of Ohio by protecting consumers, rooting out corruption, defending the environment, ensuring an open and competitive marketplace, and fulfilling the many other duties of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
Yost began his public-service career as Delaware County auditor, later winning election as that county’s prosecutor. From 2011 through 2018, he served as Ohio’s auditor of state and, in January 2019, began his first term as attorney general.
Yost earned his bachelor’s degree from The Ohio State University and law degree from Capital University. He and his wife, Darlene, live in Franklin County; they have three grown children and five grandchildren.
Vice President & Compliance Counsel, Capital One
Legal Policy Director, Pacific Legal Foundation
Daniel Dew directs Pacific Legal Foundation’s legal policy efforts. The legal policy team fights for individual liberty in the other two branches of government by finding principled solutions to complex problems.
Daniel has led numerous successful public policy campaigns, including home equity theft reform, judicial bias reform, emergency powers reform, and prior to his time at PLF, civil asset forfeiture reform, sentencing reform, and removing government-imposed barriers to employment.
Before joining PLF, Daniel was a legal fellow at The Buckeye Institute in Columbus, Ohio, and a visiting legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Daniel served on the Ohio Supreme Court’s Task Force to Examine Ohio’s Bail System, and Ohio’s Justice Reinvestment 2.0 Ad Hoc Committee. He has also served as president of the Columbus, Ohio lawyers chapter of the Federalist Society, and chaired the Ohio State Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Committee.
He earned his law degree from Cleveland Marshall College of Law and his undergraduate degree from Utah State University.
When he’s not battling bureaucrats, Daniel coaches baseball, trains for marathons (very slowly), is constantly disappointed by Cleveland sports teams, and keeps busy with his wife, Amanda, and their four children.
Justice, Ohio Supreme Court
On November 4, 2014, Justice Sharon L. Kennedy was re-elected to a full term on the Supreme Court of Ohio in a decisive victory winning all 88 counties and garnering 73 percent of the vote. Justice Kennedy first joined the court in 2012, having been elected to fill an unexpired term.
Prior to her term on the Ohio Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy served at the Butler County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division beginning in 1999. From 2005 until December of 2012, Justice Kennedy served as the administrative judge of that division. During her time as administrative judge, she improved the case management system to ensure the timely resolution of cases for families and children. Working with state legislators she championed a "common sense" family law initiative to reduce multiple-forum litigation for Butler County families.
When Butler County faced tough economic times, Justice Kennedy organized concerned elected officials in a county-wide Budget Work Group. Seeing the need to bring private sector financial know-how to the government, she worked to create the Advisory Committee to the Budget Work Group. Justice Kennedy served as the facilitator and led discussions between county officials and private sector leaders to analyze county finances, study and implement cost saving measures, and present business driven fiscal policy to the county commissioners.
In 1991, after obtaining her law degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Law, Justice Kennedy ran a small business of her own as a solo practitioner. While in private practice she served the legal needs of families, juveniles, and the less fortunate. As special counsel for Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery, Justice Kennedy fought on behalf of Ohio’s taxpayers to collect monies due the State of Ohio. As a part-time magistrate in the Butler County Area Courts, Justice Kennedy presided over a wide array of civil litigation and assisted law enforcement officers and private citizens seeking the issuance of criminal warrants for arrest.
Justice Kennedy began her career in the justice system as a police officer at the Hamilton Police Department. She was assigned to a rotating shift, single-officer road patrol unit working to protect and serve the citizens of the City of Hamilton. From the routine, to the heart-pounding, to the heart-breaking, she has seen it all. During her time as an officer, Justice Kennedy also worked undercover operations, implemented crime prevention programs, and later, as a civil assistant, assisted in drafting police policy and procedure for the Accreditation Program.
Throughout her career Justice Kennedy has served on numerous boards, developed and facilitated programs to address the needs of young people, and worked with judges across the state. As a dedicated jurist she has received multiple awards of recognition including: Leadership Ohio Community Leadership Award, 2016; The University of Cincinnati College of Law Nicholas Longworth, III Alumni Achievement Award, May 17, 2014; Northwest High School Distinguished Alumnus Award, April 25, 2014; named one of 13 professional women to watch by The Cincinnati Enquirer, March 17, 2013; Excellence in Public Service, June 2009; Judge of the Year, 2006; Above the Fold Award, 2002; and the Furtherance of Justice Award, 2001. Justice Kennedy was also featured in Trends in the Judiciary: Interviews with Judges Across the Globe, Volume II, published by CRC Press in February 2015.
Attorney General, State of Ohio
Dave Yost was re-elected as Ohio’s 51st attorney general on Nov. 8, 2022, receiving more votes than any other attorney general in the state’s history.
During his first term as the state’s chief legal officer, he quickly gained a national reputation as a fearless advocate for the rule of law — or, as he puts it, “the same rules for everybody.”
Yost’s goal is to “do big good” for the people of Ohio by protecting consumers, rooting out corruption, defending the environment, ensuring an open and competitive marketplace, and fulfilling the many other duties of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
Yost began his public-service career as Delaware County auditor, later winning election as that county’s prosecutor. From 2011 through 2018, he served as Ohio’s auditor of state and, in January 2019, began his first term as attorney general.
Yost earned his bachelor’s degree from The Ohio State University and law degree from Capital University. He and his wife, Darlene, live in Franklin County; they have three grown children and five grandchildren.
Sheila M. McDevitt Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Election Law Center, Florida State University College of Law
Professor Morley joined FSU Law in 2018, and teaches and writes in the areas of election law, constitutional law, remedies, and the federal courts. He is best known for his work on election emergencies and post-election litigation, nationwide and other defendant-oriented injunctions, the jurisdiction of the federal courts and their equitable powers more generally. He has testified before congressional committees, made presentations to election officials for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and participated in bipartisan blue-ribbon groups to develop election reforms. The governor of Florida also appointed Professor Morley to the Criminal Punishment Code Task Force, to propose potential revisions to the legislature.
The U.S. Supreme Court has cited several of his articles, and he was counsel of record for the successful Petitioner in a landmark campaign finance case. Professor Morley has appeared on C-SPAN, Court TV, Fox News and numerous local news programs, and has been quoted in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Roll Call, Politico, U.S. News and World Report, and a wide range of other national publications. His work has been published in many of the nation’s top law reviews, including the Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern University Law Review, Boston University Law Review and Emory Law Journal.
Before joining FSU Law, Professor Morley was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School. Prior to his experience in academia, he served in government as special assistant to the General Counsel of the Army at the Pentagon, as well as a law clerk for Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. During his tenure with the Army General Counsel’s office, he was awarded the Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the Army Staff Lapel Pin. He also worked as an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP and the Supreme Court & Appellate group of Winston & Strawn, LLP, both in Washington, D.C.
Professor Morley earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2003, where he was a senior editor on the Yale Law Journal; served on the moot court board; and received the Thurman Arnold Prize for Best Oralist in the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals.
Partner and Co-Chair, Public Policy Group, Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP
Mark Behrens co-chairs Shook's Washington, DC-based Public Policy Practice Group and is a leading national expert on civil justice issues with over thirty years of experience. A substantial part of his practice is working to improve the civil litigation environment through state and federal legislation; in the courts through amicus curiae briefs; through legal scholarship and judicial education; and in the court of public opinion.
Mark is actively involved in civil justice reform efforts at the federal and state levels. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and most state legislatures on behalf of business and civil justice organizations. Mark also has an active amicus brief practice specializing in tort liability and civil justice issues. He has authored or co-authored over 150 amicus briefs in cases before the United States Supreme Court and federal and state appellate courts on behalf of business, civil justice, and defense lawyer organizations. In addition, Mark routinely files comments on behalf of business, civil justice, and defense lawyer organizations regarding potential changes to federal and state court rules. He chairs the International Association of Defense Counsel’s (IADC) Civil Justice Response Committee and serves on the Board of Directors of Lawyers for Civil Justice (LCJ).
Mark is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI). He received his J.D. in 1990 from Vanderbilt University Law School, where he was a member of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his B.A. in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1987.
Staff Attorney, Shook Hardy & Bacon
Sarah works with Shook Hardy & Bacon’s Public Policy Group, whose aim is to improve civil litigation through judicial education, communications and legal scholarship; she also is a member of the Litigation practice group. Since joining the firm, she also has worked on construction industry-related arbitrations.
Before joining Shook, Sarah worked on litigation and administrative appeals for the Civil Beat Law Center in Hawaii, which provides advice and representation to the public and the media to achieve transparency in government. During law school, Sarah was senior research assistant to Andrew F. Popper during his work on the third edition of Administrative Law: A Contemporary Approach.
Vice President, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
John G. Malcolm oversees Advancing American Freedom’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as Vice President of the organization’s Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law. Malcolm brings to the challenge a wealth of legal expertise and experience in both the public and private sectors.
Prior to joining Advancing American Freedom in 2025, Malcolm was the Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government and the Director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining Heritage in 2012, Malcolm was general counsel at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as well as a distinguished practitioner in residence at Pepperdine Law School. From 2004 to 2009, Malcolm was executive vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association.
Malcolm served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2004, where he oversaw sections on computer crime and intellectual property, domestic security, child exploitation and obscenity, and special investigations. Immediately prior to that, he was a founding partner in the Atlanta law firm of Malcolm & Schroeder, LLP.
From 1990 to 1997, Malcolm was an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, assigned to the fraud and public corruption section, and also an associate independent counsel, investigating fraud and abuse in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was honored with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance for his work in connection with the successful prosecution of Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who assassinated an 11th Circuit judge and the head of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and Columbia College, Malcolm began his career as a law clerk to a federal district court judge and a federal appellate court judge, and as an associate at the Atlanta-based law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan (new Eversheds Sutherland).
Malcolm, who resides in Washington, D.C., serves on the Board of Trustees of the Washington National Opera and is a Senate-confirmed member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States.
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.
Vice President & Compliance Counsel, Capital One
Legal Policy Director, Pacific Legal Foundation
Daniel Dew directs Pacific Legal Foundation’s legal policy efforts. The legal policy team fights for individual liberty in the other two branches of government by finding principled solutions to complex problems.
Daniel has led numerous successful public policy campaigns, including home equity theft reform, judicial bias reform, emergency powers reform, and prior to his time at PLF, civil asset forfeiture reform, sentencing reform, and removing government-imposed barriers to employment.
Before joining PLF, Daniel was a legal fellow at The Buckeye Institute in Columbus, Ohio, and a visiting legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Daniel served on the Ohio Supreme Court’s Task Force to Examine Ohio’s Bail System, and Ohio’s Justice Reinvestment 2.0 Ad Hoc Committee. He has also served as president of the Columbus, Ohio lawyers chapter of the Federalist Society, and chaired the Ohio State Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Committee.
He earned his law degree from Cleveland Marshall College of Law and his undergraduate degree from Utah State University.
When he’s not battling bureaucrats, Daniel coaches baseball, trains for marathons (very slowly), is constantly disappointed by Cleveland sports teams, and keeps busy with his wife, Amanda, and their four children.
Justice, Ohio Supreme Court
On November 4, 2014, Justice Sharon L. Kennedy was re-elected to a full term on the Supreme Court of Ohio in a decisive victory winning all 88 counties and garnering 73 percent of the vote. Justice Kennedy first joined the court in 2012, having been elected to fill an unexpired term.
Prior to her term on the Ohio Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy served at the Butler County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division beginning in 1999. From 2005 until December of 2012, Justice Kennedy served as the administrative judge of that division. During her time as administrative judge, she improved the case management system to ensure the timely resolution of cases for families and children. Working with state legislators she championed a "common sense" family law initiative to reduce multiple-forum litigation for Butler County families.
When Butler County faced tough economic times, Justice Kennedy organized concerned elected officials in a county-wide Budget Work Group. Seeing the need to bring private sector financial know-how to the government, she worked to create the Advisory Committee to the Budget Work Group. Justice Kennedy served as the facilitator and led discussions between county officials and private sector leaders to analyze county finances, study and implement cost saving measures, and present business driven fiscal policy to the county commissioners.
In 1991, after obtaining her law degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Law, Justice Kennedy ran a small business of her own as a solo practitioner. While in private practice she served the legal needs of families, juveniles, and the less fortunate. As special counsel for Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery, Justice Kennedy fought on behalf of Ohio’s taxpayers to collect monies due the State of Ohio. As a part-time magistrate in the Butler County Area Courts, Justice Kennedy presided over a wide array of civil litigation and assisted law enforcement officers and private citizens seeking the issuance of criminal warrants for arrest.
Justice Kennedy began her career in the justice system as a police officer at the Hamilton Police Department. She was assigned to a rotating shift, single-officer road patrol unit working to protect and serve the citizens of the City of Hamilton. From the routine, to the heart-pounding, to the heart-breaking, she has seen it all. During her time as an officer, Justice Kennedy also worked undercover operations, implemented crime prevention programs, and later, as a civil assistant, assisted in drafting police policy and procedure for the Accreditation Program.
Throughout her career Justice Kennedy has served on numerous boards, developed and facilitated programs to address the needs of young people, and worked with judges across the state. As a dedicated jurist she has received multiple awards of recognition including: Leadership Ohio Community Leadership Award, 2016; The University of Cincinnati College of Law Nicholas Longworth, III Alumni Achievement Award, May 17, 2014; Northwest High School Distinguished Alumnus Award, April 25, 2014; named one of 13 professional women to watch by The Cincinnati Enquirer, March 17, 2013; Excellence in Public Service, June 2009; Judge of the Year, 2006; Above the Fold Award, 2002; and the Furtherance of Justice Award, 2001. Justice Kennedy was also featured in Trends in the Judiciary: Interviews with Judges Across the Globe, Volume II, published by CRC Press in February 2015.
Attorney General, State of Ohio
Dave Yost was re-elected as Ohio’s 51st attorney general on Nov. 8, 2022, receiving more votes than any other attorney general in the state’s history.
During his first term as the state’s chief legal officer, he quickly gained a national reputation as a fearless advocate for the rule of law — or, as he puts it, “the same rules for everybody.”
Yost’s goal is to “do big good” for the people of Ohio by protecting consumers, rooting out corruption, defending the environment, ensuring an open and competitive marketplace, and fulfilling the many other duties of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
Yost began his public-service career as Delaware County auditor, later winning election as that county’s prosecutor. From 2011 through 2018, he served as Ohio’s auditor of state and, in January 2019, began his first term as attorney general.
Yost earned his bachelor’s degree from The Ohio State University and law degree from Capital University. He and his wife, Darlene, live in Franklin County; they have three grown children and five grandchildren.
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