Jessica E Alvis

Question 1

List your judicial experience (courts and years)

Judicial Staff Attorney, Cleveland Housing Court 2020-2023

Personal Bailiff, Cleveland Housing Court 2020-2023

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Question 2

What non-judicial legal experience qualifies you to be a judge?

I started my legal career as a legal secretary at the age of 16 years old through the Cuyahoga Valley Career Center.  I began working at private law firms gaining knowledge and understanding of the types of issues,  motions, and pleadings that come before a court.  After I became a licensed attorney, I decided to commit my legal career to helping and serving others. 

As a county prosecutor, I pursued  justice for children in Cuyahoga County.  From there, I worked as a judicial staff attorney.  This role was important for me because it taught me how to draft decisions, orders and judgment entries.  I also gained experience conducting civil pretrial hearings. In the civil pretrials, I learned how to be fair and impartial while hearing various disputes.  My role was to then issue a recommendation for the resolution of each case to the magistrate or judge for final approval.

In addition to staff attorney, I gained experience as a personal bailiff to an administrative judge.This experience was critical to understanding the office I am seeking because it gave me a case study of  how a judge and court operates.  I observed first hand the daily operations of a court and its various types of hearings such as criminal arraignments, pretrials, bench trials, sentencing hearings, community control/probation violation hearings and a jury trial. I drafted journal entries following each hearing which were all approved by the judge.  I observed the process for how to manage court staff.  I assisted with gathering court data for the annual budget.  I also attended community events on behalf of the Court. 

I currently work as a Director of Court Services where my focus is building community engagement.  In this role, I have launched a Help Center that helps bridge the gap between the Court and the community. I also manage the Court Services Department that provides mediation and other direct services to the families impacted by the court. I have experience litigating cases before the court and I have experience working on behalf of the court.  All of these experiences prepared and equipped me to serve as judge. 

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Question 3

Why are you running for this particular court seat?

I believe that a judge is elected by the people to serve the people.  I am running for judge of Garfield Heights Municipal Court (“GHMC”) because I  genuinely care about the people impacted by GHMC.  I am passionate about making GHMC a court that is equipped to better serve the community.  I have a vision to enhance GHMC in the areas of community engagement and develop programming that will reduce recidivism. 

Firstly, I envision GHMC being a Court that educates the community on a regular consistent basis.  This will be by hosting clinics in the community on matters such as expungements, sealing records, landlord and tenant matters, license reinstatement, protection orders and resources for domestic violence.  

Secondly, in my role as Director of Court Services,  I successfully launched a Help Center for a local court. This is the center where individuals without attorneys can ask basic questions about the court process and can obtain the necessary documents they need in order to start the filing for their case.  Many court’s throughout the state of Ohio have resource or help centers and they provide a positive way for a court to educate and serve its community. When elected, I would like to ensure that a resource center is implemented at GHMC in an attempt to enhance the Court’s community education and engagement. 

Thirdly, I seek to develop programming designed to reduce the rate of recidivism. Ultimately, this means less repeat crimes within our community.   During my time working as a county prosecutor, I witnessed the effectiveness of specialty courts such as drug courts, mental health dockets, and veteran courts.  The opioid epidemic taught us that those defendants struggling with substance abuse need treatment instead of jail.  As such, the goal of these courts is to provide treatment for people with addictions or mental illness so that those factors do not cause that defendant to commit another crime in our community.  Speciality courts are not for every defendant on the court's docket but for those that do qualify it is a proven way to help reduce that person's tendency to repeat crimes.

Lastly, I would like to implement a strong and robust mediation department at GHMC. I oversee the mediation department, in my current role as Director of Court Services. Through this experience, I know that mediation is an excellent tool to make a court’s civil docket more efficient and effective.  From my time at the Housing Court, I also observed how many evictions were prevented through mediation.  In those cases, the landlords were able to obtain the rent they needed to maintain the property and the tenants were given a little more time to make their required payments when faced with financial difficulties.  I intend to implement mediation as a tool to better serve GHMC and its communities. 

These are all the ways that I seek to impact and serve the GHMC and this is why I am running for judge.

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