Candidates for Cuyahoga County Judge Seats Rated by Non-Partisan Group

28 people seeking election to 14 judgeships in Cuyahoga County and the Ohio Supreme Court? That can be a lot of candidates for voters to sift through.

Luckily, an independent, non-partisan group has done much of the work for you. The results of their efforts? Judge4Yourself.com.

There, readers can see ratings by four bar associations of every candidate in contested judicial races.

Cuyahoga County voters will decide these judicial contests:

• Eight races for common pleas court, the county's trial court for criminal and civil cases
• Two races for Juvenile Court judge
• One race for the Court of Appeals, the court of last resort in the county
• Three races for Ohio Supreme Court, the state's highest court.

The website is a project of the Judicial Candidates Rating Coalition, a collaboration of the Norman S. Minor Bar Association, The Ohio Women's Bar Association, the Cuyahoga Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and The Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association.

Each judicial candidate who chooses to participate in the ratings process completes a questionnaire and is interviewed by a panel of JCRC member organizations. Afterwards, representatives of each member organization meet separately to discuss the candidates and develop ratings.

JCRC panel members are prohibited from contributing to candidates for judicial office or working on their campaigns.

Judge4Yourself also has a Facebook page for voters who want more information.

The website also lists judicial endorsements given by The Plain Dealer and Call & Post, although the newspapers are not part of the collaboration.