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Lawyers with Artistic License: Hon. David B. Tyack
Honorable David B. Tyack
by: heather g. sowald
Judge David Tyack has music in his blood, with the ability to both follow print music sheets or to improvise and play various instruments by ear.
David’s father, a ceramic tile-setter who played the old standards of the 1930s and 1940s in weekend bands, did not read music, playing by ear only. Growing up in Bexley, David and his younger brother, a drummer, often joined their father’s bands. David played bass in his father’s bands, and played bass, keyboard, and trumpet in rock and funk bands with classmates.
David has continued to perform in bands through to the current day, albeit less so in more recent years. David started out as a music major at Capital University, ultimately switching and graduating with a degree in economics from The Ohio State University. During his college and law school years (J.D. Capital Law School, 1982), he supported himself by singing and playing bass, keyboard or organ in bands at private parties, weddings and bars. He related that he would haul his 450-pound mechanical organ from venue-tovenue in a trailer and with the aid of a moving dolly. He occasionally, for his own personal enjoyment, still plays his second-hand 68-year-old Hammond organ, which currently resides in his garage. Over the years, he has performed with different
bands. David played keyboard and bass in a band, which included three female singers, performing Motown girl group songs until the early 1990s. A few years later, he left to join a blues band, which allowed him to hone his ability to improvise and play by ear. In the mid-2000s, as a congregant at the St. John Lutheran Church in Dublin, he played bass in the churches’ contemporary band. More recently, he has joined Judge Herbert’s band, which performs classic rockand-roll music, for occasional court-related special events such
as retirement parties for outgoing staff members.
As David and his wife were raising their children, his weekend bandplaying began taking a back seat while they pursued other interests, including power boating and now bicycling. He and his wife, domestic relations attorney Suzanne Sabol, and their nowadult daughters, Lillian and Claire, have enjoyed these activities together. David said that he and Suzanne first met on opposite sides of a domestic relations case, and sometime later discovered a mutual interest in power boating up at Lake Erie, which helped lead them to their future marriage. After many years of the long-distance weekend travel to and from Lake Erie, they put aside their boating hobby and have now taken up bicycling and exploring the trails around the central Ohio area.
David was a solo general practitioner, setting up his own office after licensure in 1982. In 2007, he ran against a Governorappointed judge, and won the seat in the Franklin County Municipal Court. He has been successfully reelected since.
David has enjoyed his musicianship over the years. He said that as the only attorney member of various bands, he has met many people he might not have otherwise known. This opportunity has given him valuable insight into the other band members’ lives and problems. The ability to sing and perform on his musical instruments also tapped into his creative side, giving him a time out from the earlier worries of studying or the later concerns and stresses as a practitioner and then as a Municipal Court judge. David recognizes how fortunate he has been to have the gift of a musical ear, and the talent to entertain both himself and others over the years.
Heather G. Sowald, Esq.
Sowald Sowald Anderson Hawley & Johnson hsowald@sowaldlaw.com
