Honorable Diane M. Palos, Administrative Judge

Judge Diane M. Palos serves on the Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas, Division of Domestic Relations where she is currently the Administrative Judge. She previously served as a Magistrate and Referee in that court. She is currently a member of the Advisory Committee for Children and Families, which she previously served on from 2002 to 2008. She was the 2016-17 President of the Ohio Association of Domestic Relations Judges (OADRJ) and served from 2016 to 2017 as the Chair of the Ohio Judicial College Board of Trustees. She previously served as a Chair of the SCO Commission on the Rules of Superintendence.

Judge Palos chaired the planning committee for the Ohio Domestic Relations Summit in 2014. She was appointed by the Chief Justice to the Task Force on Access to Justice in 2014. She served on the SCO Committee on Case Management. She is the co-chair of the Ohio Judicial Conference Law & Procedure Committee for Domestic Relations. Previously, she served on the Ohio Judicial College Board of Trustees from 2005 to 2009 and from 2013 to 2018. Judge Palos has been a faculty planner for continuing legal education for judges and magistrates in Ohio since 1987.

During her first term as Administrative Judge, she created a Domestic Violence department with a dedicated Domestic Violence docket within the Court. The Department provided wrap around services for victims of domestic violence including the availability of an advocate, lethality testing, and assistance filing the Petition for Civil Protection Order and obtaining certified copies. This docket and its procedures were determined by the Office on Violence Against Women to be a Mentor Court.

She served by appointment on the Ohio Child Support Guidelines Council, from 1999 to 2001 and as a proxy to Ohio Child Support Guidelines Council from 1995 to 1997. Judge Palos is currently serving on the State of Ohio Department of Job & Family Services Safe Access for Victims’ Economic Security (SAVES) Council which is creating safe policies for the state child support agencies.

For several years, Judge Palos served on the Planning Committee for the Cleveland Child Advocacy Center, now called Canopy Child Advocacy Center. She worked with the Journey Center for Safety and Healing on the grant to establish the Safe and Sound Visitation Center.

Since 2000 she has been an executive officer and member of the Board of Trustees for The Center for Principled Family Advocacy which is multi-disciplinary association dedicated to using dispute resolution processes for family law cases. She was a founding member of the Center and has planned and facilitated many of the CLE presentations since its establishment.

Judge Palos worked as an adjunct professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law for 21 years. She taught various courses including Advanced Legal Writing with a Family Law focus, Legal Writing, Family Law, and Bar Strategies and Tactics from 1989 to 2009. Judge Palos is the author of Chapter 19, Child Support, Sowald Morganstern Ohio Domestic Relations Law and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Domestic Relations Journal of Ohio.

Judge Palos has been a member of the NCJFCJ and the Judicial Engagement Network (JEN). She is a member of the Governance Board, the Curriculum Committee, the Family Violence and Domestic Relations Committee and a previous member of the International Committee. She is also a member of the AFCC and AFCC Ohio.