Judge Lynn

Judge Lynn Toler is a former municipal court judge who now hosts the nationally syndicated court show, Divorce Court. She is also bi-monthly contributor to News and Notes, on NPR and was host of the prime time television show, Decision House in 2007.

Judge Lynn, as she is known on Divorce Court, is a graduate of Harvard University and The University of Pennsylvania Law School. She began practicing law in Cleveland in 1984. Ten years later, at the age of 33, she was elected judge of The Cleveland Heights Municipal Court. A black woman in a mostly white district where her political party was outnumbered 5:1, Judge Lynn's 6 vote victory stunned everyone. Six years later, having received the Cleveland Bar Association's highest judicial rating, Judge Lynn went on to be reelected with 80% of the vote.

While on the bench, Judge Lynn volunteered actively in her community. She created Woman Talk, a program designed to intensively mentor young at-risk girls. She did this for a decade, continuing long after she left the bench. Her efforts in this regard were praised in an article entitled, Imparting Wisdom, in Northern Ohio Live Magazine. Judge Lynn also formed a consortium of municipal court judges in an attempt to garner funding for an early intervention program for defendants who offended as a result of ongoing unmanaged mental illness. Though she was unable to receive funding she did raise awareness of the problem locally and it also began her association with, and later service on, the board of the Cleveland Chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI).

Judge Lynn also she re-vamped her local court's probation department to provide more assistance to victims of domestic violence. She later became the Team leader for her city's Section of The Coordinated Community Response to Violence against Women, a County-wide initiative for the coordination of community resources to assist women who are victims of violence. She was also active as an advisory board member for Templum House, a battered women's shelter. Later, she won the award of which she is most proud, the 2002 Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Domestic Violence Center.

In 2006, Judge Lynn published her book, My Mother's Rules: A Practical Guide to Becoming an Emotional Genius. Praised as an 'awe-inspiring memoir' by Essence Magazine, it not only chronicles her life as a child raised in the shadow of her father's mental illness but provides practical advice for anyone seeking more and better emotional control. My Mother's Rules joins a variety of other shorter published works: Crazy Love, Upscale Magazine, November 2006, Losing Nineteen, Black Men's Magazine, April/May 2004, Paradise Remembered, Northern Ohio Live, July 2001, and Brain Injury and Violent Crime, L. Turkstra, D. Jones and Hon. L.Toler, Brain-Injury, 2003 Vol. 17, no.1, 39-47, among others.

While writing her book Judge Lynn pursued another one of her passions, teaching. She became an adjunct professor at Ursuline College where she taught Civil Rights Law, and created and taught a course on Women and the Law. She was also a frequent instructor for the Ohio Judicial College, where she taught continuing judicial education course for other judges. Throughout the years Judge Lynn has been very active in a wide variety of philanthropic organizations, including but not limited to serving as a board member of Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Cuyahoga County Criminal Justice Services Supervisory Board Board of Trustees, and Goodwill Starting Over Program(helping women newly released from prison). She also served as president of The Cleveland Chapter of The Links.

Judge Lynn is also a frequent speaker. Named one of Cleveland's Most Effective Female Speakers by Cleveland Plain Dealer, (July 27, 1999), Judge Lynn speaks frequently to a variety of groups and organizations, ranging from Progressive Insurance to Embracing Girls Foundation, to fraternities and graduations.

Born on October 25, 1959, she has been married to Eric Mumford since April, 1989. She has four step sons, and two she made personally with the assistance of her husband.