A court clerk (

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadl ...

: clerk to the court or clerk of the court ;

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...

: clerk of the court or clerk of court ) is an

officer of the court In common law jurisdictions, the generic term officer of the court is applied to all those who, in some degree in the function of their professional or similar qualifications, have a part in the legal system. Officers of the court may include en ...

whose responsibilities include maintaining records of a

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...

, administer

oath Traditionally an oath (from Anglo-Saxon ', also called plight) is either a statement of fact or a promise taken by a sacrality as a sign of verity. A common legal substitute for those who conscientiously object to making sacred oaths is to g ...

s to

witness In law, a witness is someone who has knowledge about a matter, whether they have sensed it or are testifying on another witnesses' behalf. In law a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, e ...

es,

jurors A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Juries developed in England duri ...

, and grand jurors as well as performing some quasi- secretarial duties.

United Kingdom

England and Wales

In the magistrates' courts of

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is En ...

, where the bench will usually have no legal qualifications, the justices' clerk will be legally qualified. The magistrates decide on the facts at issue; the clerk advises them on the law relating to the case.

Scotland

Clerks of court can be found at every level of the Courts of Scotland, with a legally qualified clerk acting as legal adviser to

justices of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or '' puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission (letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sam ...

in justice of the peace courts. In the sheriff courts the clerk is known as a sheriff clerk, and the sheriff clerks are responsible for the administration and running of all cases in the court. Clerks also support and administer the

Court of Session The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland and constitutes part of the College of Justice; the supreme criminal court of Scotland is the High Court of Justiciary. The Court of Session sits in Parliament House in Edinburg ...

and High Court of Justiciary, with the Principal Clerk of Session and Justiciary responsible for the administration of the

Supreme Courts of Scotland The College of Justice includes the Supreme Courts of Scotland, and its associated bodies. The constituent bodies of the national supreme courts are the Court of Session, the High Court of Justiciary, the Office of the Accountant of Court, a ...

and for directing their associated staff.

United States

Federal courts

Federal courts, including the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...

, the United States courts of appeals, the various

United States district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district co ...

s (and their attached bankruptcy courts) and other Article III courts all employ a "clerk of court" who is the executive hired by the judges of the court to carry out the administration of the court. Among the clerk’s core duties are the maintenance of exhibits of the court, the custody and administration of the funds received by and dispensed from the court, the oversight of non-judicial personnel, and the provision of services to the judges of the court. A court reporter maintains the record of the court's proceedings.

State courts

Historically, some state trial courts have traditionally used the county clerk as the ex officio court clerk as a money-saving measure. Other states achieved the same result by making the court clerk the ex officio county clerk, as well as other roles such as county

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

, auditor, etc. This double consolidation of roles between the executive and judicial branches and between state and local governments made sense as a money-saving measure in sleepy rural counties on the American frontier when they were sparsely populated and had rather rudimentary legal systems. It no longer made quite as much sense in heavily populated urban counties by the late 20th century. Attempts by state trial courts to employ their own court clerks independent of county clerks were upheld by the

Supreme Court of California The Supreme Court of California is the Supreme court, highest and final court of appeals in the judiciary of California, courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly h ...

in 1989 and the Supreme Court of Nevada in 2001.
Harvey v. District Court
'' 117 Nev. 754, 32 P.3d 1263 (2001).

References

{{Authority control Legal professions Scots law general titles Law of the United Kingdom Law of the United States Court administration de:Geschäftsstelle#Urkundsbeamter der Geschäftsstelle