What does the court clerk do?What is the clerk’s role outside of the actual courtroom?

Internship

If you are interning with a court, these are some of the issues you could discuss in your paper:

Is it a federal, state, or local court? Describe the jurisdiction.  Remember, jurisdictions can be geographic, but they can also refer to the types of cases the court handle.

Is it a specialty court, like a drug court?

Who is the judge or judges in the court?  If there are several judges, is there one judge that takes a leadership role in the administration of the court?

How many cases are scheduled on an average day?  Or how many cases are on a docket on an average day?

What kind of hearings does the court conduct? First appearances? Pleas? Trials? Competency hearings? Sentencings?

What happens in the hearings the court conducts? What are the issues or legal questions that get resolved?

Describe the court schedule.  Are certain kinds of hearings held on certain days?

Describe the relationship between the various court officers.  Is it an adversarial relationship, or cooperative?  You might want to read up on the concept of the “courtroom work group.”

Who are the other support personnel in the court? What are their roles?

What does the court clerk do?What is the clerk’s role outside of the actual courtroom?

When the judge makes a ruling, or gives an order, whose job is it to make sure that ruling gets carried out?  How does that happen?