CLAY COUNTY — Nancy Cleaveland is running against Ashley Cox for a judgeship in the Fourth Judicial Circuit, which comprises Clay, Duval and Nassau counties. 

When Cleaveland was 6, her mom read a newspaper article about how an intruder was bitten by a dog when he attempted to break into someone's home. The intruder ended up suing the family and won.  Even at a young age, Cleaveland understood the judicial system failed. 

“I thought that was so unfair. My mom said to me nonchalantly, ‘If you want things to be fair, you should be a judge,’ and I took her seriously. I wanted things to be fair,” she said.

She went to law school with that childhood dream simmering in her mind. She graduated from Florida Coastal School of Law, a former private for-profit law school in Jacksonville that lost its accreditation and closed its doors in 2021. 

“That was well after I left," she explained. 

"When I started, it was still a new school. During my second year, they moved to the new campus, and they were able to accept more people because they had more space. In doing that, to my understanding, their standards were lowered a little to make a profit.”

Still, Cleaveland says she has the foundational legal knowledge to be a circuit court judge. After graduating, she founded a law firm with her eventual husband that specialized in family law. After they married, the firm was renamed Cleaveland and Cleaveland.

She said her experience in family law has equipped her to be a judge. She explained that family law is a dynamic legal specialty that sometimes involves violence, personal injury, finances, real estate, probate, and "just about every area of law."

“You get your hands in a lot of different things,” she said. 

As a self-described contextualist, Cleaveland wants to interpret the law as it is written. She is against judicial activism and is hesitant to extraneously interpret legal statutes. 

"If the statute says it. That’s what it is. I don’t have to like it or agree with it. That’s the law, and I have to enforce it,” she said. 

Circuit courts are the highest state trial courts in Florida. They handle felonies and major criminal and civil cases, while county courts handle misdemeanors and minor criminal and civil cases. 

The circuit judge seat is on the Aug. 20 Primary Election ballot.