In 11th District Court of Appeals, Trapp gets endorsement

In the race for the 11th District Court of Appeals, Colleen M. O'Toole of Lake County and Mary Jane Trapp of Geauga County are vying for the seat being vacated by Judge Judith Christley.
Based on their resumes and on interviews with Vindicator editors, we are endorsing Trapp for the seat.
Both have said that they believe the court, which includes five judges who hear cases in panels of three, should move more aggressively toward computerization. Both suggest that the lack of technology may contribute to cases not being expedited as quickly as they could be.
Both are right and both are qualified, but Trapp has a more extensive background and speaks more forcefully about what can and should be done.
The district appeals court is an important cog in the Ohio wheel of justice. For the vast majority of plaintiffs or defendants, it is the last court in which their case will receive a hearing. The Ohio Supreme Court accepts only about 10 percent of the cases that are brought to it from the state's 12 district courts of appeals.
The 11th District covers Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake, Portage and Trumbull counties.
Background
Trapp, who won the Democratic primary, is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University College of Law and has been a lawyer for 23 years. She has been managing partner in the law firm of Apicella & amp; Trapp since 1996.
She served as president of the Ohio State Bar Association, 2001-2002, and remains the Ohio Bar's delegate to the American Bar Association House of Delegates. She has extensive trial and appellate court experience in criminal and civil law.
O'Toole, who won the Republican primary, is a graduate of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and has been a sole practitioner for 14 years. She also has experience in civil and criminal law, at the trial and appellate court level.
Both candidates also believe that courts, including the court of appeals, should attempt to use mediation between the parties as a method of speeding the resolution of a case. Hearing a full appeal is a necessarily time-consuming process in which lawyers for both sides file briefs and often present oral arguments to the panel of judges. The judges must then agree on the appeal and, with their clerks, research the law and write an opinion.
Mediation, in which both sides get one last chance to reach an agreement in the case, offers a quicker alternative to justice.
Trapp, based especially on her experience on Bar Association committees that have worked on administration, legal and tort reform, would be in a better position to push for mediation and other innovations.
Justice must be pursued swiftly, but surely, and Trapp speaks more eloquently on the need to balance those competing interests.