During World War I Herbert served in the Army Air Service.

In the Republican landslide year of 1946, Herbert defeated incumbent governor Frank J. Lausche.

Herbert served as a justice of the Ohio Supreme Court from 1957 until 1963.

[2] Herbert married Jeanette Judson of Cleveland on April 30, 1919, and they had four children.

Herbert remarried, while Governor, Mildred Helen Stevenson of Indianapolis on January 3, 1948.