The Clerk of Court is responsible for all clerical and record-keeping functions of the District and Superior Courts.  The Clerk of Court is also the ex officio judge of probate and has jurisdiction over certain foreclosures, divorces, adoptions, and name changes.

The Clerk of Court is an elected partisan position that serves a four year term of office. To become the Clerk of Court, you must be elected by the voters of your county or under certain conditions you may be appointed be the Senior Resident Superior Court Judge of your county. There are 100 Clerks of Court in North Carolina.

There is no statutory requirement for any particular educational background.  You do not have to be a licensed attorney.  You are not required to have a four year degree or a background in law.  Many Clerks of Court in North Carolina are individuals with high school diplomas and years of experience in the clerk's office. 

I ran for Clerk of Court in 2020 because I felt my work history, my diverse life experiences, my leadership skills, and my years of working closely with our clerks as the Chief Magistrate of Forsyth County made me a better candidate than the incumbent clerk who was appointed to the position. 

The disruption of judicial services created by the pandemic caused my first 15 months in office to be more demanding than I could have imagined.  Despite staff shortages and other courthouse office closures, our office remained open to the public every weekday from 8am until 5pm.   Although we all had our own family illnesses, deaths, and childcare issues to manage, we continued to provide courteous service to the public as we worked diligently to correct procedural and human resource issues within our office that were identified by an internal audit that I requested after becoming your Clerk of Court.  I ran for re-election because I wanted to continue to improve our courthouse services, especially the procedural and service weaknesses exposed by the challenges of the pandemic.  We, the staff of the Clerk's Office, work constantly whether it's in our offices, in hallways, by email, or by phone to resolve the multitude of issues that arise daily in operating judicial services.  

I have five distinct goals for my time as your Clerk of Superior Court:

1. to continue our in-house training program to develop professional and responsive clerks,

2. to continue to align our operational procedures to statutory law and best practices models,

3. to expand our efforts to engage with our community about courthouse services,

4. to provide experience and leadership as we move our clerk's office and judicial community into our new courthouse located two blocks east of our current location in early Spring of 2023, and

5. to emerge from this pandemic a more resourceful, productive, and modernized office.