The Judicial Conference of the United States has authorized the appointment of two full time magistrate judges for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Cleveland to fill the vacancies created (1) in the event of the confirmation of United States Magistrate Judge David A. Ruiz as a United States District Judge, and (2) upon the retirement of United States Magistrate Judge William H. Baughman, Jr., effective July 1, 2022. The Court is currently seeking qualified applicants to fill these vacancies.

The duties of the position are demanding and wide-ranging and include: (1) conducting most preliminary proceedings in criminal cases; (2) trial and disposition of misdemeanor cases; (3) conducting various pretrial matters and evidentiary proceedings on delegation from the judges of the district court; and (4) trial and disposition of civil cases upon consent of the litigants. The basic jurisdiction of the United States magistrate judge is specified in 28 U.S.C. § 636.

To be qualified for appointment, an applicant must:

1.  Be, and have been for at least five years, a member in good standing of the bar of the highest court of a state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Territory of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or the Virgin Islands of the United States, and have been engaged in the active practice of law for a period of at least five years (with some substitutions authorized);
2.  Be competent to perform all the duties of the office; be of good moral character; be emotionally stable and mature; be committed to equal justice under the law; be in good health; be patient and courteous; and be capable of deliberation and decisiveness;
3.  Be less than seventy years old; and
4.  Not be related to a judge of the district court.

A Merit Selection Panel composed of attorneys and other members of the community will review all applicants and recommend to the district judges in confidence a specific number of candidates whom it considers best qualified. The Court will make the appointment, following an FBI full-field investigation and an IRS tax check of the applicant selected by the Court for appointment. The individual selected must comply with the financial disclosure requirements pursuant to the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95-521, 92 Stat. 1824 (1978) (codified at 5 U.S.C. app. §§ 101-111) as implemented by the Judicial Conference of the United States. An affirmative effort will be made to give due consideration to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, age (40 and over), gender, religion, national origin, or disability. The current salary of the position is $205,528 per annum. The term of office is eight years.

This public notice and the Application for United States Magistrate Judge form are available on the Court’s Internet website at https://www.ohnd.uscourts.gov/careers. Applications must be submitted in one PDF document at MJ_Applications@OHND.uscourts.gov and received by no later than 4:30 p.m. on Monday, February 7, 2022.

All applications will be kept confidential, unless the applicant consents to disclosure, and all applications will be examined only by members of the Merit Selection Panel and the judges of the District Court. The panel’s deliberations will remain confidential.