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Meet AJ Williams '03, Greene County Clerk of Courts

What are your job responsibilities and duties?

The Clerk of Courts is the keeper of the records for the Greene County Court of Common Pleas and all automobile title transfers, swears in all trial jurors, and reads the verdict in criminal trials.

What are the daily tasks that your office performs?

We make sure that filings reach the courts and judges on time.  We also receive orders from the judges to issue warrants from our office, and we get it to the police department so they can make arrests.

Why is your work considered essential?

The Supreme Court of the State of Ohio ruled that all Common Pleas Courts are essential and are to remain open, so we didn’t need to make a decision.  It was pretty helpful for us to have that decision from the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Maureen O’ Connor. The main tag line they used in the ruling is that we need to continue to provide citizens access to justice.  For dealings with the clerks, that includes someone who is filing for a civil protection order or someone who is trying to pay a fine from a criminal case. We need to provide [those services] to our citizens. We can’t just shut that down and say, “I understand you need a civil protection order, but we can’t file it right now,” and hope for the best.

What precautions are you taking to ensure you’re not spreading the coronavirus?

Our volume of work has gone down tremendously, so we’ve gone to half staff.  Half of our staff works one week, and the next staff comes in the next week. We’ve done that for three weeks now.  We’ve had the luxury of not needing to have everyone in the office and allowing people to stay home for a week. We have a thermometer scan every day, and no one’s had a fever.  We also have drop boxes outside the courthouse and have a lot of phone calls every day to keep people outside the courthouse for their safety and our safety.

What are the lessons you learned at Carroll High School that are helping you navigate this situation professionally and personally?

Going through St. Helen School, Carroll High School, and the University of Dayton, I learned that it’s always about service.  All the lessons I learned through my Catholic upbringing and family is service above self, and it always has been. There was never a time when I thought we need to close this down, but we need to find a way to serve the public no matter what.  Some of the staff was afraid to come in, and my stance was for them to stay home, feel safe, and not worry about their jobs, but I’ve been in every day at both offices. I’ve been at the title office alone because I need to provide that service.  I learned it at St. Helen, it was reinforced at Carroll, and it was reinforced at UD. Through my Catholic education, service has been instilled in me, and that’s the only way to operate.

Editors' Note: During the coronavirus pandemic, we are featuring alumni who work in essential fields to learn more about how social distancing and other changes are affecting their critical professions.  Please contact Director of Communications Michael Franz '05 if you know an alumni with an essential job who would like to share their story with the Carroll community.