Justice Jennifer Brunner has served at all three levels of Ohio’s judiciary. Before her election to the Ohio Supreme Court in 2020, she was a judge of Ohio’s Tenth District Court of Appeals for 6 years. She also was a judge of the Franklin County Common Pleas Court for the state’s most populous county, for nearly 5 years. While a trial judge in Franklin County, she became concerned about the high percent of people in the criminal justice system who were addicted to drugs and experienced mental illness. She founded in 2004 the county’s adult felony drug court, still operating today. This special court docket helps people move from crime and addiction to clean and healthy lives and give back to their families and communities.

Jennifer Brunner is one of just 5 women to be elected to statewide nonjudicial office in her own right since Ohio became a state in 1803. She is the first Democratic woman in Ohio to have been elected to two statewide offices Ohio Secretary of State and Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio. She is Ohio’s first and only female Secretary of State.