Biography
If elected, PAMELA BARKER will bring a unique perspective and balanced approach developed through her legal experience as a 27-year practicing attorney and 10-year magistrate and life experience as a woman, wife and mother to ensure that all parties are heard, both sides of the issues presented are carefully weighed and considered and the law is consistently applied and therefore, fairness is achieved and justice to the residents of Cuyahoga County is served.

Pamela Barker is the granddaughter of West Virginia and Virginia coal miners and the Cleveland born and raised daughter of blue-collar, union workers, who has been married for 26 years to Jeffery Barker, the owner of a small business that has employed anywhere between 20 and 40 employees over the past 36 years.

Pamela Barker has been the Juvenile Diversion Magistrate for the City of Brecksville since October of 2000 who, when conducting hearings with the youthful offenders and their parents to consider and impose consequences geared towards deterring repeat illegal conduct for their own well-being and that of the community, and as the mother of two sons – ages 23 and 19 – has often said “there but for the grace of God go I”.

Pamela Barker has been a Mayor’s Court Magistrate for the City of Brecksville since May of 2000 and has a reputation for treating those that come before her with dignity and respect and listening for as long as it takes to ensure that the defendant is fully heard, but having relatives and friends and having had clients who are police officers and understanding the job that they do, Pamela Barker considers all the facts and circumstances of a case while emphasizing a respect for the law and those that enforce it and explaining the need for personal responsibility for actions taken. Having had extended family members involved, and/or having represented them, in the criminal justice system, Pamela Barker has witnessed first-hand the effects that the process and results can have on an individual’s life and livelihood.

Pamela Barker is a lawyer who after obtaining her law degree from The Ohio State University College of Law in 1982, has represented individuals, small businesses and large corporations as plaintiffs and defendants in municipal, state and federal trial and appellate courts throughout Ohio. Pamela Barker has litigated numerous bench and jury cases in courts throughout Northeast Ohio and has briefed and/or argued appeals before eight out of the twelve Ohio appellate district courts and the Ohio Supreme Court. She has served as an arbitrator and arbitration chairman for the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas and was selected to serve as an arbitration chairman in a private complex litigation matter. No matter the client or the client’s financial resources or lack thereof, Pamela Barker has been a strong and hard-working advocate for all of her clients.

As an attorney that has managed litigation processes and other employees, ensured timely completion of tasks and completed numerous administrative reports and assignments and as the wife of an employer, but as a front-line employee at Red Barn, Uncle Bill’s, McDonald’s, Union Commerce and Huntington National Banks, and Roadway Express while attending high school, college and law school, and as the mother of young adult children that have worked in retail and service industries while attending school, Pamela Barker has a hard work ethic and an appreciation for those that provide a work product and service and those that own a business and manage the process.

A proud product of the Cleveland Public Schools system who graduated from James Ford Rhodes High School in 1975 and earned a scholarship to Kenyon College where she obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, with Honors, Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1979, Pamela Barker considers it a civic duty to be politically aware and involved, and she was a 2005 candidate for Judge of the Garfield Heights Municipal Court and a 2008 candidate for Judge of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, but she is not a politician. As a student of political philosophy and history, Pamela Barker is a strict constructionist believing that judges should not legislate from the bench but must follow the law as established by the duly elected representatives of the people.

A woman of strong faith, convictions and integrity who believes that others should be treated as she would want to be treated and adheres to principles over expediency, Pamela Barker is aware that family and church are important places to instill and promote faith and Christian values and beliefs but that the trial court bench is not the appropriate forum for imposing those beliefs upon others.