Office: Hamilton County – Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas
Age: 50
Residence: Cincinnati, OH
Email: tanestorlaw@gmail.com
Website: www.terrynestor.com; Facebook:
@TerryNestorforJudge; Twitter: @terrynestor2018
Occupation: Deputy City Solicitor
Education: B.A. Miami University; J.D. University of Cincinnati
Work Experience: Trial Attorney since 1997
Family: Married to Brigid Horne Nestor; two children
Affiliations: University of Cincinnati adjunct professor of law;
Cincinnati Bar Association; Catholic
Endorsements: Hamilton County Democratic Party
Bar Association Ratings: N/A
(1) List your judicial experience (courts and years):
First-time candidate.
(2) What about your non-judicial legal experience qualifies you to be a
judge?
I have been a trial attorney litigating civil cases since serving as a law
clerk in the Hamilton County court system. I have successfully tried
jury trial cases in Hamilton, Butler, and Clermont counties and in our
federal district court. I have appeared and argued in dozens of appeal
cases, including in the Ohio Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit Court
of Appeals. My first job after law school was as a civil law clerk for
Judge John O’Connor in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas.
I then worked as an associate attorney defending physicians, lawyers,
engineers, and architects in civil cases. My experience in trial includes
defending wrongful death, employment discrimination, catastrophic
injury, and civil rights cases. In 2003, I left the private practice of law to
become a trial attorney for the City of Cincinnati.
Since 2003, I have practiced in municipal law, serving as Chief Litigation
Counsel for the City of Cincinnati, defending the City, its officials, and
employees in state and federal court. From 2014-2015 I served as the
interim City Solicitor directing a public law office of over 70 employees,
including the City’s prosecution, litigation, real estate, and economic
development divisions. In 2015, I was named the Deputy City Solicitor
to manage and direct the court divisions of litigation and prosecution.
In a day as an assistant city solicitor, my work is as varied as defending
cases in a small claims court to litigating multi-million dollar cases and
alternative dispute resolution proceedings in both the common pleas
court and the federal district court. I have also worked on nontraditional
mediation proceedings involving the City’s police
department, its pension system, its health department, and its
infrastructure. As an adjunct professor of law at the University of
Cincinnati, I have the privilege to instruct second and third-year law
students about local government, trial persuasion, and advocacy.
(3) Why are you running for this particular court seat?
I am running for judge to increase the legitimacy of justice in Hamilton
County. As a former law clerk and current trial practitioner, I have
unique insight into the quality of justice in Hamilton County. I propose
three reforms that will increase the quality of justice for our citizens.
First, the court should adopt reforms that increase the depth of the jury
pool in criminal and civil trials. Currently, the court only uses registered
voters as its source for the jury roll. I believe the court should use both
the registered voter list and the registered driver’s license list to
increase the number of people who serve on juries. Fundamentally, the
courts should be about preserving the constitutional right to a jury trial
and assuring that all people have access to a jury of their peers.
Second, the court, in cooperation with the clerk’s office, should
aggregate and make available sentencing and other court statistics to
make the decisions in each courtroom more transparent. The public
should have access to simple and usable sets of data that allows people
to understand sentencing fairness for both defendants and victims of
crime. On the civil side, people should have easy access to court
statistics that demonstrate the likelihood of summary dismissal, bench
or jury trial, and how long their case will take.
Third, the court and the Hamilton County jail are currently ill-equipped
to deal with the opioid crisis that is a daily challenge for our local
governments and first responders. Rather than repeat the current
system of “catch and release,” I believe our common pleas court has a
role to play in transforming Hamilton County into a “catch and cure”
jurisdiction. By partnering with existing community control models and
treatment facilities, our courts should be a place to help solve the drug
crisis in both our urban and suburban neighborhoods.
Finally, I think competition is good for our elected officials. No elected
official should be unopposed on the ballot when democracy depends on
different ideas to get different results.