Leonard J. Stern

Leonard J. Stern (1904-1988) was a Republican lawyer from Ohio who served as a Common Pleas judge, an appeals court judge and from 1970 to 1977 was a justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. Leonard J. Stern was born in Cleveland, Ohio on October 4, 1904, the son of Benjamin and Hermine (Markovitz) Stern. He managed his father's grocery store while working his way through Cleveland–Marshall College of Law. He graduated in 1926, was admitted to the bar, and went into private practice in Cleveland. He was a bailiff of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. In 1939, Stern and his family moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he was corporate counsel in the office of Ohio Secretary of State Earl Griffith. In 1940 he became executive secretary to the Ohio Board of Public Works, which he held for six years. He then went into private practice in Columbus. In 1965, Governor Jim Rhodes appointed Stern to the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, and he won a six-year term in 1966. He was appointed by Rhodes in 1969 to Ohio's 10th District Court of Appeals.