Ohio Supreme Court pro se domestic relations forms

The Ohio Supreme Court last Friday announced the proposal of 23 standardized domestic relations forms so litigants not represented by an attorney can "meaningfully participate in many family law related proceedings in domestic relations and juvenile courts such as divorces, dissolutions, legal separations, and parenting plans."

Key information, relevant instructions, and tips have been embedded in the forms using plain English as much as possible to assist self-represented litigants in pursuing their cases in court, and, once adopted in final form, the forms will be posted on the Supreme Court's website in a format which will either to able to be completed online or printed out for completion by hand.

The Supreme Court will be entertaining comments until November 13, 2012, which should be directed to:

Stephanie Graubner Nelson, Policy and Research Counsel
Children, Families, and the Courts Section
Supreme Court of Ohio
65 South Front Street, Sixth Floor
Columbus, OH 43215

Or via e-mail to stephanie.nelson@sc.ohio.gov.

Access to Forms

Ohio voter issues

Two lawsuits -- one having just been decided by the 6th. Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing early in-person voting over the final three days before the election, while the other, still pending in the 6th. Circuit, seeks to determine whether certain provisional votes will be counted – will have much to say about the state's procedures for Election Day 2012, Cincinnati.com writes this morning, and "a month before the Nov. 6 presidential election, the rules that will govern how Ohioans cast their ballots remain uncertain."


Of the two suits, Cincinnati.com says, the one concerning provisional ballots – cast when there are questions over a voter's registration – arguably has the greater potential for causing last-minute scrambling among election officials and confusion at the polls.

"Late last August," the article continues, "U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley ordered Ohio to count provisional ballots cast at the right location but in the wrong precinct, a crucial ruling that could prevent thousands of votes from being disqualified as they have been in past elections. That decision changed the rules established by an earlier Ohio Supreme Court ruling under which all provisional votes cast in the wrong precinct must be tossed out, even in cases of poll worker error… Secretary of State John Husted appealed Marbley's decision to the 6th Circuit, leaving both sides waiting for a decision. When it will come is a matter of conjecture."

Ohio Supreme Court's "foreign language interpreter" rules

The Ohio Supreme Court's new monthly Court News Ohio Review newsletter this month has a cover article about the state's new interpreter requirements going into effect next January.


Ohio's court interpreter program actually goes back to the mid-90s when interpreter qualifications, policies, and training were initially identified by the Ohio Commission on Racial Fairness. In 1993, the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Ohio State Bar Association created that commission to examine the issue of racial bias in the justice system. Its report was issued in 1999.

In June 2003, the Supreme Court became part of the National Center for State Courts' Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification (now Consortium for Language Access in the Courts). It then created its Advisory Committee to Study Use of Court Interpreters in April 7, 2005, which, in turn, issued its Report on the Use of Interpreters in Ohio Courts in February 2006. Findings of the report included Ohio's having no standard qualification process for interpreters and no guidelines, policies or procedures to help assist courts in the use of interpreters in the courtroom…

By the end of 2008 the Supreme Court had rules, guidelines, policies and procedures, and had set them out for public comment, and by the beginning of last year it had its first class of 23 certified interpreters.

Rules of Superintendence for the Courts of Ohio (Sup. R. 80. Definitions and 88. Appointment of a Foreign Language Interpreter or Sign Language Interpreter.) were finalized & adopted by the Judicial Conference on
June 11, 2011. They go into effect January 1st. 2013  (Here)