The names, addresses and telephone numbers of the Ohio courts are published in the Ohio Legal Directory, BNA's Directory of State and Federal Courts, Judges and Clerks and other standard directories (see "Court Clerks / Court Houses" and/or "Judges").
The Ohio Supreme Court web site provides extensive information on all levels of the Ohio court system as well as links to appellate court and trial court web sites.
There the Supreme Court provides a substantial description of the Ohio judicial system, including a is a flow chart of the various courts. You can find a similar chart in Want's Federal-State Court Directory that also explains which of the many types of trial courts handles which kind of case and which appellate court handles which kind of appeals.
Ohio is located in the Sixth Federal Circuit.
Following are discussions of how to get:
- Court Rules
- Judicial Biographies
- Judicial Opinions
- Supreme Court Case Status, Motions & Case Summaries
- Supreme Court Records and Briefs
- Jury Instructions
- Reports of Verdicts and Settlements
A. Court Rules
Annotated Ohio court rules are published as part of both Page's Ohio Revised Code Annotated and Baldwin's Ohio Revised Code Annotated. Note: Baldwin's keeps all the court rules together in separate volumes kept at the end of the set. Page's publishes the court rules for each court in the volumes containing the statutory provisions governing the court, thereby spreading them throughout the set. To find the rules you need, use the "Condensed Table of Contents" inside the cover of every Page's volume.
Unannotated Ohio court rules are published in Anderson's Rules Governing the Courts of Ohio and West's Ohio Rules of Court.
In addition, the Ohio Supreme court posts unannotated Ohio court rules. For best searching, use the Court Rules databases on Lexis (OHIO;OHRULE) or Westlaw database (OH-RULES).
To update Ohio Court rules, see the proposed and final rule amendments posted by the Supreme Court. You could also search the database of rule-related orders, opinions and notices on Lexis (OHIO;OHRULE) or Westlaw (OH-ORDERS) and/or check Shepards on Lexis or KeyCite on Westlaw. For more information, call the office of the Reporter of Decisions, which handles rule amendments (614.387.9580).
Some courts have their own local rules, which are available from the court. The courts generally post their local rules on their Web sites. Links to many of these court Web sites are posted by the Zimmerman Law Library.
Note: You can see if there have been recent changes to sections of court rules published in the Revised Code (e.g., the rules of evidence and civil practice) in Table III at the back of the latest paperback edition of Baldwin's Ohio Legislative Service Annotated.
See also the general entry for "State Court Rules."
B. Judicial Biographies
Ohio doesn't have any state-specific judicial directories. Instead, use the general directories listed in the "Judges" entry and any information posted on the relevant court's Web site. For example, biographies of sitting justices of the Ohio Supreme Court are posted at
http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/SCO/justices/default.asp. The Ohio Supreme Court provides links to the appellate court and trial court web sites.
C. Judicial Opinions
All reported Ohio judicial opinions are officially published in Ohio Official Reports. This includes Supreme Court opinions (cited as Ohio State Reports), appellate court opinions (cited as "Ohio Appellate Reports") and trial court opinions (cited as "Ohio Miscellaneous Reports").
Following is a court-by-court review of the sources for Ohio case law.
Supreme Court Opinions: Supreme Court opinions are cited as "Ohio State Reports." They are published officially in Ohio Official Reports and unofficially in West's North Eastern Reporter. In addition, Supreme Court opinions are posted in the Supreme Court's Ohio Court Opinions database back to 1992. Supreme Court opinions are posted on Findlaw back to 1997. Supreme Court opinions are searchable on Lexis (OHIO;OHIO), Westlaw (OH-CS), Versuslaw.com, Loislaw, Fastcase and on CD-ROMs published by West, Anderson Publishing and the Ohio State Bar Association. Subscribers can get opinions back to 1990 on HANNAH Online / Ohio Capital Connection, and members of the Ohio Bar can get opinions free from Casemaker.
See also "Legal Ethics."
Court of Appeals (District Courts): Reported appellate court opinions are cited as Ohio Appellate Reports. They are published officially in Ohio Official Reports and unofficially in West's North Eastern Reporter. In addition, Ohio appellate opinions are searchable on Westlaw (in OH-CS), www.versuslaw.com, Fastcase and on CD-ROMs from West, Anderson Publishing and the Ohio State Bar Association. Members of the Ohio Bar can access Casemaker for free, but the database goes back only to 1964.
The Office of the Reporter of Decisions posts opinions for all the appellate district courts.
To get unreported appellate court opinions, use Lexis (OHIO;APP) or Westlaw (OH-CS); Ohio Bar members can use Casemaker. I've been told that Lexis has considerably more unreported appellate court opinions than Westlaw and particularly more unreported opinions from the 1970s. Note: Casemaker's unreported opinions go back only to 1991.
Trial Courts: Selected opinions by Ohio Common Pleas Courts and other "lower courts" are cited as Ohio Miscellaneous Reports and reported in the Ohio Official Reports. (See the Ohio section of The Bluebook for the names and abbreviations of older case reporters. For a more thorough review of official and unofficial Ohio case reporters, see the "Annotated Bibliography" at the end of Ohio Legal Resources: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide.)
Reported trial court opinions are available on Lexis, Westlaw (OH-CS) and the West and Anderson's CD-ROMs. Contact the court clerk to get copies of unreported opinions and other documents from the case file.
D. Supreme Court Case Status, Motions & Case Summaries
Case Status: To find out if an appellate court case has been accepted by the Ohio Supreme Court, run the appellate court opinion through Shepards on Lexis or KeyCite on Westlaw.
To find the status of a case that you know has been accepted by the Ohio Supreme Court, first check to see if the case is listed on the Court's Oral Argument Calendar. If not, call the Clerk of Court's Office (614-466-5201 or 614-466-3931) and ask.
Motions: The Ohio Supreme Court publishes "Case Announcements" that tells how the court ruled on motions (e.g., for dismissal, certiorari, etc.). These announcements are published by date in the advance sheets of the Ohio Official Reports You can search for announcements by adding the word "announcements" to your terms in the Ohio Court Opinions page. Alternatively you can call the Office of the Reporter (614-387-9580) and ask for information about motions in a particular case.
For disciplinary actions, see "Legal Ethics."
Case Summaries: Once the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case, the court writes out the issue on appeal and indexes the case by topic, Revised Code number and party names in its internal "Issue Tracking System." You can get copies of this information by calling the Office of the Reporter of Decisions (614-387-9580). In addition, the Oral Argument Previews page links to summaries of cases to be heard in the next few days. The summaries are archived back to 2007.
In addition, you may be able to get a summary of the case from Anderson Publishing Company's monthly Pending Opinion Report: A Summary of Cases Accepted for Review by the Ohio Supreme Court. This pamphlet provides one-page "summaries of cases accepted for review after consideration of memoranda in support of and in opposition to jurisdiction." Alternatively, you can try to get copies of the briefs from the court or the attorneys handling the case. Or search a database of Ohio legal news for articles on higher profile cases.
E. Supreme Court Records and Briefs
For Supreme Court cases decided before 1982, the contents of the case files (i.e., "Records and Briefs") are microfilmed and available at large Ohio libraries (the State Library of Ohio, the Cleveland Law Library Association, etc.). Since then, hard copy is available at many large law libraries.
In addition, for cases both new and old, photocopies of the hard copy records and briefs are available from the Supreme Court Clerk (614-387-9530) and the Supreme Court Library (614-446-4442). The Clerk has lower copy fees, but you have to make the copies yourself (or hire someone to do it for you) at the Courthouse. The Library charges more but will make the copies and mail or fax them to you.
In either case, call ahead to find out if the material has to be retrieved from off-site storage. If it does, then it will probably take 4 to 5 days before copies can be made.
The Supreme Court posts live and archived video and audio recording; information is posted on the Supreme Court Video page.
F. Jury Instructions
Ohio Jury Instructions are promulgated by the Ohio Judicial Conference and published in Anderson's four-volume Ohio Jury Instructions or on Anderson's Ohio Jury Instructions CD-ROM. Volume One contains "General Instructions," Volumes Two and Three contain instructions for specific types of Civil cases and Volume Four contains instructions for Criminal cases.
G. Reports of Verdicts and Settlements
For broadest coverage and best searching, I use the Lexis Ohio Jury Verdict database (VERDCT;OHJURY).
More verdicts and settlements are reported in The Ohio Trial Reporter. The Reporter is available in print (with annual indexes) and is searchable on CD-ROM.
Members of the Ohio Bar can access a Verdict Reporter database through Casemaker.
Sources for nation-wide for verdict and settlement information are discussed in "Verdicts and Settlements."
