Presides over Re-Entry Court, a specialized docket certified by the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Handled complex litigation matters and a broad scope of matters representing both plaintiffs and defendants.
Judge Tammy O’Brien approaches her position on the bench with fairness, integrity, balance, and a commitment to treating every person who enters the courtroom with dignity and respect. She believes the community deserves competence, efficiency, and courtesy, and looks forward to continuing to bring those values to the Summit County Court of Common Pleas.
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.
In her 15 years on the Common Pleas bench, she has presided over more than 140 trials and has terminated more than 18,000 cases. These cases include the most serious felony criminal matters involving, for example, murder, rape and major drug offenses. She has also decided complicated civil cases involving medical malpractice and trade secret violations, to mention only a few.
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 on issues involving public education in Ohio.
Prior to taking the bench, Judge O’Brien was in the private practice of law in Akron for 19 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 has 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.
During her time in private practice, Judge O’Brien also served as an assistant prosecutor for the City of Hudson. Among her professional accolades, she was twice named a “Super Lawyer/Rising Star” in Cincinnati Magazine’s list of top lawyers in Ohio under 40 years of age.
In 1992, 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. A former high school teacher, she was an adjunct professor of law at the University of Akron and, for more than 25 years, has been selected by the Supreme Court of Ohio to serve as a Reader/Grader of the State Bar Examination. Following this experience grading the Bar Examination, Judge O’Brien was appointed in 2023 by the Supreme Court of Ohio to serve on the Board of Bar Examiners, which is responsible for developing, administering, and grading the Bar Examination.
Judge O’Brien is an active member of the Akron Bar Association, having previously chaired its Common Pleas and Appellate Courts Committee and served on several other committees.
In 2020 and 2021, she served as President of the Board of the Akron Bar Foundation, which is the charitable arm of the Akron Bar Association and awards grants and scholarships which improve the administration of justice and promote understanding of the law. She also served as the Foundation’s Secretary in 2019, and has been active in the organization for 23 years.
A member of the Ohio State Bar Association since the beginning of her career, she was appointed in 2025 as a member of the Association’s Ohio Bar Content Advisory Board. She was also a Barrister in the Scanlon/Bell Inn of Court from 2004-2009 and has been a Bencher with that organization since 2016.
In 2010, she was selected by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to serve on the Merit Selection Panel to select the next Federal Bankruptcy Judge in the Northern District of Ohio.
She is co-author of a legal treatise involving the introduction of evidence at trial. Ohio Motions in Limine: Evidence Exclusion Guide was published annually by Thomson West from 2007-2010.
Judge O’Brien also served the community for 14 years as a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Red Cross of Greater Akron and the Mahoning Valley. On that Board, she was Co-Chair of the Board Engagement Committee and served on the Executive Committee.
She is a graduate of Leadership Akron, past president of the Board of Trustees for H.M. Life Opportunity Services, a multi-faceted program serving homeless single-parent families, and a former member of the Board of H.M. Housing, Inc., a multi-state law income housing program.
Judge O’Brien graduated from the University in Akron in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree, magna cum laude, in Secondary Education and received her Juris Doctorate Degree, cum laude, from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University in 1992. She also completed course work at the College of Wooster and Ashland College.
Judge O’Brien and her husband, Nathan, have three grown children and four grandchildren.
An avid baseball fan, in her free time, Judge O’Brien can be found rooting for the Cleveland Guardians, reading detective novels, knitting, wrangling grandchildren, or hiking the mountains of southern Pennsylvania.
