August 30, 2018

2018 Judiciary Committee Findings

This year, there are four contested races for the Franklin County Common Pleas Court, General Division as well as three contested races for the Domestic Relations/Juvenile Division.

The Columbus Bar Association provides information on Franklin County judicial candidates in a variety of ways, including candidate biographies on our "Judge the Candidates" website, attorney poll results, and the results of the CBA Judicial Screening Committee.

The Judicial Screening Committee, made up of around 20 members, conducts interviews with judicial candidates in order to get a better idea of their character. This information is compiled into an easily accessible document geared toward helping the public learn more about the candidates. The CBA strives to have a politically balanced Committee in order to reduce the influence of partisanship.

These members use an interview with the candidate as well as supplementary information from a questionnaire, additional information provided by the candidate and the results of past performance polls to rank the candidate “Highly Recommended,” “Acceptable,” or “Not Recommended.” A candidate needs to receive 60 percent of “Highly Recommended” votes to be considered such; similarly, a candidate must receive 70 percent of “Not Recommended” votes in order to be considered such. All other instances will result in the candidate being considered “Acceptable.”

The CBA does not endorse any judicial candidate; our role is to provide impartial, non-partisan information about the judicial candidates in any given election year. All results from the Judicial Screening Committee are available online for public consumption. This year's results are available to the right.