The Court
The court most voters never think about until it decides their life.
The Domestic Relations Division of the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas is a court of limited but enormous jurisdiction. It handles a narrow list of case types, and every one of them is personal.
Jurisdiction
What this division actually decides
Each item below is the court's statutory jurisdiction under the Ohio Revised Code, not campaign language.
R.C. Chapter 3105
Divorce, dissolution, legal separation and annulment
Every marriage that ends in Lucas County through the courts ends here. The division decides how property and debt are divided and whether spousal support is ordered, for how long, and in what amount.
R.C. Chapter 3109
Parental rights, custody and parenting time
The division allocates parental rights and responsibilities, sets parenting time, and decides relocation and modification disputes, applying the best interest of the child standard.
R.C. Chapter 3119
Child support
Support is calculated, ordered, modified and enforced here, including deviations from the guideline worksheet and post-decree arrearage proceedings.
R.C. 3113.31
Domestic violence civil protection orders
Petitions for civil protection orders are heard on an emergency basis, often the same day they are filed. These are among the fastest and most consequential decisions the division makes.
R.C. 2705.02
Enforcement and contempt
Orders that are ignored come back before the court. The division hears contempt motions on support, parenting time, and property division long after a decree is entered.
Why the seat is different
No jury. No appeal for most of it. One judge.
Domestic relations cases are tried to the bench. There is no jury to check the judge's read of a witness, and the discretionary rulings that decide most families' outcomes, such as parenting time, deviation from the support guideline, the credibility of competing accounts, are reviewed on appeal only for abuse of discretion. In practice, the trial judge's judgment is the outcome.
That is why the résumé for this particular seat is not interchangeable with any other judgeship. Reading a support worksheet correctly, spotting a protection order petition that is really a custody maneuver, and knowing when a self-represented parent has been steamrolled are learned in this division, not in general civil practice.
Judge McGowan has worked in this division, and only this division, since 1999.
The courthouse
Lucas County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division
429 N. Michigan Street, Toledo, Ohio 43604
Official court websiteThe court's own website is the authority on filing, forms, hours and dockets. This campaign site links to it and does not reproduce it.
If you have a case
Do not contact the campaign about it.
Judge McGowan cannot discuss a pending or impending case outside the courtroom. Do not use any form on this website to send information about a case, to ask a legal question, or to seek advice. Messages of that kind cannot be answered and will be discarded. If you have a matter before the court, contact your attorney or the Clerk of Courts.
Finding this race
It is not where you expect it.
In Ohio, candidates for judge of a court of common pleas are nominated in a partisan primary but appear on the November ballot with no party label, in the separate nonpartisan judicial section. That section sits below the partisan races, so voters who stop early never reach it. Turning the ballot over is the single most important thing a supporter can do.
Voting in Lucas County