Housing Court Insider
Welcome aboard to Daniel J. Burns, hired recently as a Staff Attorney for Cleveland Housing Court.
Burns is a Justice Center boomerang, working for the Cleveland Municipal Court’s General Division as a law clerk in the Magistrates Department before leaving to work for a small nonprofit and most recently as a tax advisor for H&R Block.
“It was kind of just a natural progression,” Burns said of his return to the Justice Center. “I really enjoyed being a law clerk, and this position is very similar, so I was super down for that. I’m like a law clerk but better.”
Trials are not his thing. “What I didn’t want to do is be in court. And this gave me the opportunity to research law, be court adjacent, talk to judges, talk to parties and help them resolve disputes, but not be a trial lawyer. I get to represent the court, and that’s way cooler than being a party.”
Burns graduated from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, with a B.A. in Anthropology and then, a few years later, attended Law School at Case Western Reserve University, where he received his law degree.
A military brat, Burns was raised in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Germany, and Massachusetts. He lives in Euclid with his wife, Tiffany, their newborn son, and their three dogs. He enjoys politics and cycling and writes a monthly column for his local newspaper, the Euclid Observer, on local politics and community development.
You can find his columns here.
“It’s just an opinion column,” he said. “I write whatever I feel.” He began the column a year ago and then made an interesting discovery. “Fun Fact: My grandfather was a newspaper columnist in Jamaica during their fight for independence.”
