 Howdy, my name is William Rumley, I'm the court director for the Fort Worth Municipal Court. Today we're going to be sending a few minutes to learn about the clerk of the court division of the Fort Worth Municipal Court. I have two of our outstanding managing team members here today to talk about municipal court and I'll let them introduce themselves. So Andrew if you'll go first. Hi I'm Andrea Crater and I've been with the city of Fort Worth since May of 2016 and I'm currently over the operations section of the clerk of court team. Antonio. Hello my name is Antonio Olivos, I've been with the court for 16 years, I'm over the services section of the municipal court. I started my career here at the court as a senior municipal court rep, cashier, then I promoted to supervisor and now I'm at my current position of a deputy court clerk. So just for the benefit of the audience, could each of you tell me a little bit about what is a deputy court clerk and specifically for you what are the duties you do as a deputy court clerk? As a deputy court clerk we actually manage our supervisors. We are the leaders over our supervisors who actually manage our frontline staff. Currently I have our warrants team, our arraignment team, we have our case management team which would consist of docket clerks and our jury section. I also have our phone team, our public information team and our records management clerks. So what does a warrant clerk do? What warrant clerks do, currently we have two shifts, warrant clerks confirm on our capious profile and our capious warrant with the court. So those are related to classy misdemeanors, fine only and just for the benefit of the audience. So while we only have fine only offenses, when you, when somebody fails to appear for court or they fail to comply with the judge's order, there can eventually be a warrant or several steps to get there. So you mentioned some other teams, so what does the records team do? Records team, they are actually the forefront runners of the court. So once a citation is assigned to a person, the records team actually inputs the information. So it's basically data and they are inputting information off of the citations and we also have electronic citations. So they ensure that those are put into our case management system correctly as well. Great. And so you mentioned the phones team and so just kind of quickly, what do they do? Phone team, they are one shift, they are eight to five currently and they handle all the incoming calls for the municipal court. They also handle our chat line as well. So doing with the chat line, especially during COVID times, the chat line was very, very sufficient. It helped out a lot of areas to where if those defendants or the community couldn't make it into court, they typically ask their questions via chat as well. And then the docket clerks support the judges in the courtroom? That is correct. We currently have five operational courts in person and we currently also have virtual courts as well. So we are doing in person and online. So with the docket clerks do, they do support judicial staff as you stated. They also provide our jury backup as well. So we actually start our jury on tomorrow, which is October the 19th. So you mentioned there's a 24-7 operation within the clerks division. I believe it's the arraignment court. So what do the clerks do there? With the clerks do in the arraignment team, there are three different shifts. They support our judicial staff along with our arraignment that happens off-site. So what happens is those who get arrested, they have the opportunity to come before a judge and be arraigned with their outstanding charges. Well, thank you, Andrew, for letting us know a few minutes about yourself and your team. So Antonio, kind of what areas do you cover and what does your teams do? All right. So I'm over the services area of the municipal court. I'm over financial management, which consists of the mailroom, parking office and bonds. And I'm also over collections and enforcement. Great. So kind of financial management, really the cash area, if you will. So what do those staff members do on a daily basis? Financial management, we are the first line of service for anyone that comes into our building. We do offer customer service first, and we also offer information on people's options on what they can do with their tickets. This includes payment in fulls, defensive driving, information on deferred. We send people to the walk-in and help people process their not guilty options as well. So you mentioned bonds, I think. So what do you all do with the bonds? Yes, sir. So we do have a bonds window in the event. Anyone is incarcerated. This is for attorneys or bondsmen. They have a window to go to to submit bonds, which helps send a release for anyone that's incarcerated. And we can process their paperwork and send them a court day to appear. And then even if they're not incarcerated, but they have a warrant, can they still post a bond to keep from being arrested? Yes, sir, exactly. If they have an active warrant, then we can accept a bond, and that would clear the warrant for that time. So, Justin, if somebody was interested in becoming a clerk, I know there's a couple things. We're really trying to professionalize our clerk of the court division. We've really put in what's called an automatic reclass program. We're really lean on the state, Texas Municipal Court Education Center and certifications and really bringing our team up to that next level of service and professionalism. So let me just start with you, Andrea, for your service area. What kind of skills are you looking for for somebody who may be interested in becoming a clerk? So we're looking for customer-friendly team members, those who are very strong-minded, strong-willed, who get data entry skills. Those, for my team, the majority work with the judges, so good personal skills, personal relationship skills. We have different variations of customers, internal and external. A lot of my team members work with police. They work with the marshals. Every officer possible that you could think of. They also work with the attorneys and our city prosecutors as well. So those who are really good customer-oriented and who are willing to go over and beyond. I think what you emphasize there is that somebody can work independently and also, like I said, great customer service skill, community-minded, and can work with all levels of folks, whether it's an attorney or another clerk or a police officer just a myriad. So, Antonio, for your service area, what types of skills are you looking for? We're looking for people with experience in banking, preceding money, tenders and cash checks or credit cards. We have people who process mail, so you have to pay attention to detail who can multitask. But most importantly, we are the first contact in the court. So we are looking for people who can make a lasting first impression with all the citizens who come into our building. So definitely, you know, we talk often amongst ourselves. So municipal courts see more people than all the other courts combined. And sometimes this may be the only experience somebody has visiting Fort Worth. And so we want that to be a positive one, even though getting a ticket, nobody likes getting a ticket. So the clerks take a lot of that on on a daily basis, right? Y'all are, as you said, whether it's on the phone or in person, you are engaging folks. And while clerks don't give legal advice, they do give information to help folks to be able to determine how they may be able to resolve their cases. So with that being said, you know, thank you all for spending a few minutes with us today to talk about the clerk of the court division. Thank you all as we hopefully helped you to kind of understand what clerk the courts do, or the clerks do within the clerk court division in municipal court.