Hon. Richard A. Frye

Richard A. Frye was a Common Pleas judge in Franklin County, Ohio for 18 years prior to mandatory retirement in 2023. Since then he has served in trial courts across Ohio as a retired visiting judge under appointments by the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.

Awards include the Professionalism Award from the Ohio Chapter of ABOTA; the Moritz College of Law alumni society at The Ohio State University’s Judge William K. Thomas judicial excellence award; and the Liberty Bell Award from the Columbus Bar Association for leadership of the judges committee that oversaw design and construction of the new Franklin County Courthouse that opened in 2011. He was one of the judges featured in the 2014 IAALS / American College publication Working Smarter, Not Harder: How Excellent Judges Manage Cases.

Judge Frye chaired many groups of lawyers and judges, including the Ohio Supreme Court’s Commission on Rules of Practice and Procedure, the Local Rules Comm. of the U.S. District Ct. for the S.D. Ohio, the Columbus Bar Foundation board, and the board of Columbus Legal Aid.