O’Donnell was appointed by Governor Bob Taft in May 2003 to replace Justice Deborah Cook, who was confirmed to the U.S. Sixth District Court of Appeals. An extensive legal and judicial background have led O’Donnell to the pinnacle of his career, where he can exhibit his unbiased integrity and his belief that a judge’s job is to apply the law, not write it.

In the Ohio Chamber’s “2003 Business Evaluation of the Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals,” O’Donnell received a 60 percent overall score, showing he is willing to give business litigants a fair hearing. During his tenure on the bench at the Court of Appeals, O’Donnell displayed a common sense approach to justice. In one intentional tort case in which a hospital worker contracted tuberculosis, O’Donnell dissented from the majority opinion when the evidence showed that the worker’s chances of becoming ill from his participation in an autopsy were only three percent – not the substantial certainty required under the law.

“My notion is, after a fair, impartial assessment of the facts, depending on the law, and applying the law to those facts is the process of determining which party will prevail,” O’Donnell says.

Born in Cleveland, O’Donnell attended Kent State University where he graduated in 1968 with his bachelor of arts degree in political science. He then went on to earn his juris doctor from Cleveland State University in 1971. His legal career began that year when he worked as a law clerk to former Ohio Supreme Court Justice J.J.P. Corrigan. In 1980, O’Donnell was appointed as a trial judge on the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, where he served for 14 years. His next career move took him to the Eighth District Court of Appeals where he served as a judge from 1995 to February 2003.

Justice O’Donnell has also immersed himself in activities related to his profession. He has previously served as an instructor of several Continuing Legal Education programs as well as an instructor of the C.P.A. Business Law Review at Cleveland State University. He was a member of the Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism as well as chairman of the Ohio Legal Rights Service Commission. His current activities include serving as officer of the Catholic Lawyer’s Guild of Cleveland; member of the Cleveland Bar Association; and member of the Ohio State Bar Association.