Honorable Judge Tammy O'Brien

Judge Tammy O’Brien was appointed to the Summit County Court of Common Pleas in 2011, elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2014 and 2020. She served as the Court’s Administrative Judge in 2014 and 2015. She also presides over one of the Court’s specialized Re-Entry dockets and is a member of the Summit County Re-Entry Network Steering Committee. Previously, she was elected to the State Board of Education in 2008 and 2010, where she represented the citizens of Summit, Portage, Trumbull and Ashtabula Counties.

Prior to taking the bench, Judge O’Brien was in the private practice of law in Akron for nineteen years. From 1999-2011, she was a partner in the law firm of Roderick Linton Belfance LLP, practicing primarily in the areas of business and general civil litigation. She also had extensive experience in appellate practice and in tort and employment litigation and argued before the Supreme Court of Ohio and the federal Court of Appeals on numerous occasions.

She began her career as a Judicial Law Clerk/Staff Attorney for the Honorable William R. Baird of the Court of Appeals of Ohio, Ninth Appellate District. She has also been an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Akron and, for many years, has been selected by the Supreme Court of Ohio to serve as a Reader/Grader of the State Bar Examination.

She is co-author of a legal treatise involving the introduction of evidence at trial. Ohio Motions in Limine: Evidence Exclusion Guide, formerly published by Thompson West.

Judge O’Brien also serves the community as a member of the Board of Governors of the Akron Bar Foundation (President 2020-2022), and served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Red Cross of Greater Akron and Mahoning Valley for more than twelve years. She is a graduate of Leadership Akron and past president of the Board of Trustees for H.M. Life Opportunity Services.

She graduated from the University of Akron in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree, Magna Cum Laude, in Secondary Education and received her Juris Doctorate Degree, Cum Laude, from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University in 1992. Judge O’Brien is also the mother of two adult sons.