Login | April 25, 2024
Judge Waite of the 7th District Court of Appeals profiled
RICHARD WEINER
Legal News Reporter
Published: July 7, 2011
Judge Cheryl L. Waite has been on the bench of the 7th District Court of Appeals since she was first elected in 1996. A 1985 graduate of the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University, she has been on the bench for a longer period of time than she was in private practice. She is second in seniority at the court: Judge Vukovich was sworn in one day before her.
The 7th District is one of the more rural districts in the state, comprising the counties of Mahoning, Columbiana, Jefferson, Carroll, Belmont, Harrison, Monroe and Noble.
Waite received her undergraduate degree with honors from Youngstown State University in 1982, majoring in English literature. After she received her law degree, she worked as an assistant law director for the City of Youngstown, eventually becoming first assistant, and also took a position as acting risk manager starting in 1991.
While working in the city’s law department, she worked primarily on appeals.
“I was never really happy as a trial attorney,” she said. “But I was very happy with appellate work.”
It was at the suggestion of a friend that she first ran for the appellate bench, and she has not looked back since.
Waite works at home a great deal, and reads for pleasure when she is not reading for her work at the court.
But, when she gets outside, she really gets outside. The judge and her husband, Attorney Edwin Romero, are avid motorcyclists, traveling to the Bike Week gathering in Sturgis, North Dakota each year on their Harley Davidson Screaming Eagle Ultra.
Even so, they are not quite a part of that crowd.
“We usually camp at Mt. Rushmore,” Waite said.
Sturgis is usually just a part of a longer trip out west for the couple. Although the bike is in her name, the judge is the passenger as Romero drives the motorcycle.
“I usually fly out, and he picks me up,” she said. “We have been to Yellowstone, the Tetons—all around. I just sit in the back and check out the scenery. You don’t really see what you are driving past unless you’re on a motorcycle,” she adds.
Back home, Waite finds herself in the perfect job for her.
“This was my dream job,” she said, echoing most appellate judges on that topic. She also echoes a common complaint among her colleagues: the only thing that she doesn’t like about the job is having to run for office.
Even though Waite did not particularly like being a trial attorney, her time on the appellate bench has given her a great deal of respect for trial judges.
“The number of decisions they make—the chances of getting everything right. I am impressed by the fact that they do get almost everything right,” she said.
Over the years, she has noticed some major changes in the court system. For one, she said, “when I first joined this legal community, there were only a handful of women here. I was an anomaly.”
She has also seen the legal community as a whole become less collegial.
“I think that we have lost something. No one feels that he or she may see (opposing counsel) tomorrow, or that they may be on the same side some day. So they are more free to disparage the other side or the other counsel. You can see this in briefs—sometimes I think that attorneys think that we don’t read them.
“This seems cultural. There is just not a lot of respect for institutions. This is true of the public, but it can also be true of lawyers. But if you don’t respect the individual, you at least have to respect what the individual represents. That is the only way that the justice system works.”
Altogether, the judge does know that, “this is a great job. I get to sit back and think about what everything means—why words fit together in the way that they do. I love the intricacies of the written word.”
Waite and her husband have two children. Alexis is a golf management major (and a 6 handicap) at Ohio State; Evan is home in high school.