Achieving Justice Series - Magistrate Anne Flottman

This "Achieving Justice" interview is conducted by Judge Jennifer Brunner, currently a judge of Ohio's Tenth District Court of Appeals and candidate for Ohio Supreme Court. Judge Brunner is a candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court in 2020. In her thirteenth interview of this series she interviews Magistrate Anne Flottman, judicial candidate for the Hamilton County Domestic Relations Court in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Anne is a wife, mother, grandmother, sister, daughter, and friend. Anne and Tom, her husband of thirty-nine years, have three sons, two daughters-in-law, and one grandson. From a large Irish-American family in Louisville, Anne celebrates her Irish heritage - a love of laughter, books, and politics - with her six siblings and many cousins. As a resident of Hamilton County for almost 40 years, Anne has learned to love all things Cincinnati, from goetta to Oktoberfest to the Reds.

Anne worked her way through college as a server and bartender. After graduation, she moved to Cincinnati to take a job teaching high school English. When her children were little, Anne earned a Master’s Degree in English at Xavier University, attending evening and weekend classes. Xavier then asked her to join the English Department as an adjunct instructor. In her years at Xavier, Anne brought the power of the written word to some of the country’s finest young minds, and had an absolute ball doing so. In 1998, Anne decided to pursue her lifelong dream of being a lawyer and enrolled at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Law.

Since 1999, Anne has been involved solely in family law - as a law clerk, an attorney in private practice, and since 2014, as a magistrate at the Domestic Relations Court in Warren County. Anne began her focus on family law when she was a law student as a law clerk first at the Clermont County Domestic Relations Court, and then at the firm of Wagner and Bloch, a well-regarded specialist in domestic relations.Anne learned the subtleties woven into the fabric of family law, learned how to try a case in court, and learned how much her background as a wife, mother, friend, and teacher informed her ability to help her clients.

By dedicating her practice to family law, Anne was able to handle hundreds of cases on all aspects of this area, from prenuptial agreements and property division to child custody and grandparents’ rights. In 2011, she achieved the Certified Family Law Specialist designation from the Ohio State Bar Association. Anne also often served as a Guardian ad Litem, where she advised the court about the best interests of children whose parents were involved in domestic disputes. In 2014,

Anne accepted an offer to serve as a magistrate in the Warren County Domestic Relations Court; she knew that joining the bench would give her an even greater opportunity to help children and families.