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Moving On After 32 Years with the Washburn County Circuit Court System

Moving On After 32 Years with the Washburn County Circuit Court System

If you’ve always been a law-abiding resident living in Washburn County, you probably don’t know much about the Clerk of Courts office on the second floor of the courthouse in Shell Lake.

You might have visited the office if you needed a passport, and if you, like so many others ,think that the clerk of courts is kind of like the county clerk’s office, you would be wrong. Every day they get phone calls for the other one’s department.

The County Clerk’s office, is on the first floor of the Government Center/Courthouse, and it’s the place you visit when you need a license for hunting and fishing, or marriage. It’s where you get a burning permit or information on county land sales. 

County Clerk, Lolita Olson and Chief Deputy, Rosie Hauk sell plat books and they are the people who stay up until the wee hours of the morning on election night tallying the Washburn County votes, township by township until they’re all in. 

Karen Nord is the head of the Clerk of Court’s Office and their office is on the second floor of the Courthouse. She and her staff, manage all court files that relate to the judicial system of Washburn County such as civil, small claims, felony, misdemeanor, traffic, county ordinance, DNR, divorce, paternity and family. They open and maintain all new cases, dockets, pleadings, and take court minutes, enter judgments, prepare bail bonds and criminal judgments of conviction. They also enter and vacate warrants and prepare court files for appeals. They collect fees, fines, restitution, court-appointed attorney fees and any other obligations ordered by the Court.  

This office also processes passport applications, takes care of all other phases of jury management and any other duties as required of the office. The clerk and staff also assist the public in accessing the court and its records.

Whew.

After 32 years doing this kind of work, Karen will be retiring at the end of this month.

She started her career as a legal aid and office manager in Superior, the town of her birth. When her husband, Brian, was hired as a social worker for Washburn County, they moved to Shell Lake and her first job was working in the abstract office. 

Her next position was in an office on the second floor of the old courthouse as a judicial assistant for Judge Dennis Bailey in 1985.

Since then she’s worked for Judge Warren Winton and was appointed to the Register and Probate position, then appointed by the current Judge Harrington as the Clerk of Courts in 2008.

As a judicial assistant, she worked hand-in-glove with the seated judge, scheduling cases, doing the correspondence and keeping everything running smoothly like a seasoned executive secretary does.

But it’s finally time to leave the work of keeping the county’s legal system organized and running smoothly to someone else.

And what are some of the retirement plans she and her recently retired husband, Brian, have in mind?

Before she starts any of the projects she’s thought about for a long time, like quilting and gardening, they are going to travel. Their 3 children and 7 grandchildren live within an hour and a half from Shell Lake in three different directions, but their first trip, shortly after her retirement date, will be to someplace warm.

While sitting on a beach somewhere, hopefully she won’t be thinking of work or the people she served through her years of service, but she might be remembering if she was back at work, that the office will be going almost completely paperless this year and the entire state will follow in 2019.

As a remembrance of time past, she still has some of the original steno pads that were used by the court reporter when Karen first started in 1985 that are full of shorthand copy. It was an era when everything was documented with a hard paper copy and there are thousands of documents stored in and around the courthouse outgrowing their storage space, so paperless will have its merits.

With technology changing so rapidly everywhere, especially in the Clerk of Courts office, you’ve got to know that warm sand and tropical breezes will be a welcome change.

Last Update: Jan 10, 2017 7:17 am CST

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