ASHLAND — It’s been one month since David Stimpert took the bench at Ashland County Court of Common Pleas, and the weirdest thing about the job so far has been having to respond to “Your Honor.”
“And then seeing it in print as I’m doing entries and stuff like that is different for sure,” Stimpert said sitting in his office on a Friday afternoon, a week after being sworn in.
The new judge — who ran his own practice as a defense lawyer and worked as Chief Assistant Law Director for the city of Ashland — had just read and approved a grand jury’s docket before sitting down with this reporter to talk about his first month behind the bench.
He acknowledges the job is bigger than himself, and knows some people wish to honor that by using the moniker as a show of respect — but he said he prefers to be called Dave because, well, he’s still him, despite the prodigious title.
Getting to know Dave
One could say Stimpert’s path to the bench started at an early age.
During his swearing-in ceremony, Stimpert thanked his father for instilling in him a solid work ethic.
“My father, the greatest man I have ever known, taught me time and time again — usually without saying a word — that you work until the job is done. And if it’s worth doing, then by all means, do it the right way,” Stimpert said.
Stimpert grew up in the Crestview area, on an animal and cash-crop farm adjacent to his grandparent’s farm. His parents, Robert and Pam Stimpert, always kept animals — horses, sheep and cattle. Because his dad was employed full-time at AK Steel in Mansfield, Dave remembers getting more involved with work around the house and farm as a teenager.
“The chores that I was involved with were what you would expect — feeding, cleaning stalls, baling hay,” he said. “We also occasionally raised cash crops on the farm, but mainly focused on hay production.”
Robert “Bob” Stimpert worked at AK Steel in Mansfield until he retired in the early 2000s, after 33 years. Shortly after retiring, he helped form the Regional Manufacturing Coalition (RMC), a group that works to support manufacturers through education, training and networking.
Mark Romanchuk, who now serves as an Ohio senator, helped Bob Stimpert form RMC before Stimpert’s passing in 2012.
“He was a really great guy,” Romanchuk said of Bob Stimpert. “He was passionate about manufacturing and about keeping the industry strong. And, because he was a farmer, he knew what it meant to put in a good day’s work.”
Dave graduated from Crestview High School in 1999, and then enrolled at Ashland University, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in 2003. From there, he went to Akron University to study law.
The summer after law school, in 2006, he remembers listening to bar review lectures on headphones while stacking hay bales at his parents’ house.
Two years later, after a stint with Oxley and Poplar Co. on Claremont Avenue, he bought Hillbilly Holdings LLC, a business formerly owned by law partners Tim E. Potts and John Good. The LLC purchase came with law offices at 10 E. Main St., where Stimpert practiced law until November 2022, when he was elected as judge.
“If this didn’t work out, I thought about maybe turning it into an apartment,” Stimpert said of 10 E. Main St. while sitting at the same desk, in the same chambers, of his predecessors.
Being judge means he cannot own a private practice, so he sold Hillbilly Holdings LLC to Matt Nowakowski, who co-owns Masterminds Escape Room across the street with Erik Fortney.
Between 2008 and 2022, Stimpert built a resume that, in November 2022, earned him enough votes to sit at the county’s most prestigious bench.
He married his wife Allison in 2008 and started working under Ashland City Law Director Richard Wolfe in 2012.
In 2013, the Stimperts welcomed their first child to the world, and in 2014 he assumed the lead in criminal prosecution duties for the city. By February 2023, he’d become a father of three more children and prosecuted more than 11,000 criminal and traffic cases, and thousands of other cases as a defense attorney.
His previous boss, Wolfe, got emotional during Stimpert’s swearing-in ceremony. He choked up when he invited Judge Good up to the bench in order to lead the oath of office. When asked why, Wolfe — after a long pause — said:
“Well, I’m just very proud of him. I think he’s going to be doing an outstanding job for the county. I’m just very glad for him,” he said.
Stimpert’s pastor, Brian Amstutz of United Methodist Church in Olivesburg, agreed.
“In Dave’s life, I see someone who’s worked really hard to prepare himself for a role like this,” Amstutz said.
He and Stimpert meet each Friday morning to pray. The pastor said it’s a good way to support the new judge.
“He’s worked hard to be competent. But he has the competence to receive insight from others. He doesn’t necessarily think he has everything figured out. He’s still learning and growing,” Amstutz said.
‘Take it as it comes’
Knox County Court of Common Pleas Judge Richard Wetzel was reassured when he met Stimpert for the first time in February.
Wetzel, at age 66, has four years before he’s required by state law to retire from being a judge. He said the job commands someone with “energy and stamina.”
“When I started in 1982, I was a lawyer. Judges were older. They had gray hair. You’d practice law for 20 to 30 years, then become judge. But it’s a young man’s job — in any court. It’s not a retirement position. So it was refreshing meeting Stimpert,” Wetzel said.
Wetzel was assigned by the Ohio Supreme Court to be Stimpert’s mentor, a state requirement for all new judges. The two have only met once, and Wetzel is looking forward to more meetings.
“He’s a very personable person. He’s easy to talk to, likable,” Wetzel said of Stimpert. “He’s a younger judge. He has vitality and enthusiasm for a new chapter in his life.”
Wetzel said Stimpert represents a generational shift seen across the state as judges have reached the constitutional age limit of 70. A law enacted in 1968, the Modern Courts Act, forbids judicial candidates from running for state or local judgeships if they turn 70 before they are sworn into office.
In 2018, in 159 races not involving vacant seats, 26 incumbents were barred from running due to their age, including four in Cuyahoga County and three in Franklin County.
At 41, Stimpert is one of the youngest judges Ashland County Court of Common Pleas has ever seen. When asked if he saw himself still behind the bench around 30 years from now, he said … maybe.
“I’m on my 17th year being a lawyer, and now a judge. Another 30 years is quite a bit of time,” he said. “If I’m doing a good job and the voters keep voting me in, I would like to stay a while. But I don’t know about 30 years. I have hobbies and other interests, so retirement doesn’t sound bad. I’ll take it as it comes.”
