Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
Inspiration can come from anywhere – at any time. For some, it comes from watching their parents work and following in their footsteps. Others are drawn to careers they learn about in school.
For 1986 Pocahontas County High School graduate Randy Taylor, his inspiration came from the TV show “Perry Mason.”
Around the age of seven, Taylor was struck by the main character, attorney Perry Mason.
“I saw Perry Mason on TV and everyone was captivated,” he said. “When that guy talked, everybody listened. I’m like, that’s what I want to do. I remember running into the kitchen and saying, ‘Mom, I want to do what this guy is doing and she said, ‘oh, he’s an attorney.’”
As he grew up, Taylor never wavered. He was going to be an attorney. Even his physician, Dr. Roland Sharp, couldn’t persuade him to follow another path.
Every year at his check-up, Sharp would ask Taylor what he wanted to be and he said attorney.
“He’d go, ‘oh, no there are too many attorneys,’” Taylor recalled. “He said, ‘you want to do one of three things – you want to be in food production or the health industry or the death industry – because you will always have a job as long as you do a good job.’”
The advice never took. When Taylor was 18, he again told Sharp that he wanted to be an attorney, Sharp just said, “well then be a good one.”
“I think I did him proud,” Taylor said.
After undergraduate school at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, Taylor took the LSAT test and was accepted at Cleveland Marshall law school in Cleveland, Ohio.
It was one of those situations where the stars aligned. It just so happened that Taylor’s neighbors in Dunmore retired to the county from Cleveland, and they had a house that was 15 minutes from the campus.
Taylor was able to rent the house from them and got to work earning his degree.
Although he was told by a professor at JMU that he would never leave Cleveland if he went to school there, Taylor was convinced otherwise, but it turned out that professor was right.
Taylor remained in Cleveland after graduation and opened his own practice.
He was in private practice for 24 years when he was approached by the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas to be a court administrator.
He sold his practice and took the position at the courthouse where he had a lot of different duties. It wasn’t long before the judges were asking him to consider taking a position as a magistrate.
Unlike West Virginia, magistrates are appointed in the state of Ohio.
At first, Taylor was against taking the position, but in March of 2025, he was sworn in as a magistrate.
Taylor handles civil suits and does do some arraignments.
“It’s been kind of how I expected,” he said. “I can try bench trials, but I can’t conduct a civil jury trial without [the parties’] authority. They would have to agree to it.”
In addition to being a magistrate, Taylor has continued some of his administrative work, including overseeing an addition to the 12,000 square foot courthouse, which was built in 1869-70.
Taylor has the attitude of “I have to be here anyway,” so he finds himself doing a lot of odds and ends.
“That’s unusual for a government employee to say that,” he said. “I’m not your typical government employee. They know I’m not going to complain about it.”
Taylor is the HR administrator and the financial officer for the court, as well as the spokesman for the court. So, when a reporter calls for a hot scoop, he’s the one they talk to.
Taylor attributes his ability to work with people in all these settings to having an understanding about people and their needs.
“It’s a social science,” he said. “I think the difference here is, in particular in court, most people are not real happy to be here. If you have to be at the courthouse – even if it’s a civil case – they’re just not real happy to be here.”
Taylor works with the people in the best way he can to help them resolve their issues.
The son of Elke Taylor, of Dunmore, and the late Jerry Taylor, Randy has two sons, Zachary, who is a mechanical engineer and Ely, who is in the U.S. Air Force.
