By: L. Cramer
Something just doesn’t seem right at Cobb County Superior Court Clerk Connie Taylor’s office. After Chief Judge Poole issued the Notice of Judicial Emergency on August 7, the story was top of mind for about a minute and then the news cycle moved on to other things.
But as we mentioned in our last article, these issues at the clerk’s office have been long standing and brutal for the entire Cobb County judicial system. So brutal, in fact, that Judge Robert D. Leonard II, who currently presides over the Veterans Accountability and Treatment Court, has publicly denounced the chaos that has led to the crippling of the entire Cobb County court system.
“The biggest issue in the clerk’s office, from my point of view, is a lack of competent leadership and lack of training and support for the employees,” Judge Leonard said in an email correspondence about the Superior Court Clerk’s office. “The staff in that office care about doing a good job but they have no support from leadership.”
When it comes to employee turnover, Taylor’s office isn’t known for retaining the best talent.
“At times it feels like people are jumping from a sinking ship,” Leonard explains. “Most of the subject matter experts have been run off or left because of the conditions existing in the office. We have weekly conversations at the courthouse about who quit last week. It’s really a sad situation.”
The idea that leadership isn’t supporting the staff, and a high employee turnover rate, could explain why the office is in such shambles; and Judge Leonard is not alone in his thinking.
Mazi Mazloom, an attorney in Cobb County for the last 24 years with a practice only two doors down from the Cobb Superior Court Clerk’s office, said he too is worried about Taylor’s leadership.
“I just know it’s a lot of new faces and I don’t think she’s implemented a great training program for them,” Mazloom adds that they are great folks and helpful when they can be, but ultimately their leader has not taken up the mantle of teaching them what they need to know.
It seems that everyone who deals with the Cobb County Superior Court Clerk’s office knows these issues exist but nothing is being done about it. It’s gotten so bad, that notices are late or not going out at all, and it’s resulted in citizens missing court dates and having bench warrants out for their arrest.
“I have met with potential clients who come in here frantic that ‘I had court yesterday and I just got my notice today’,” Mazloom said.
Meanwhile, Judge Leonard notes, “bench warrants have been severely curtailed” though the judges are still issuing them, and in certain cases they send the notices out themselves, “but we [the Judges] generally don’t trust that the clerk has sent notice”.
Prior to the Cobb Judge’s knowledge that the Clerk’s office was failing to send notice, there was a point where they would issue bench warrants for the arrest of individuals who, innocently, didn’t know when they had their court date. So, one could speculate that Connie Taylor, who ran as a Democrat, is responsible for putting citizens in jail who didn’t belong there.
Prior to Connie Taylor, the court clerk’s office ran like clockwork and notices were sent out three to six weeks in advance giving both citizens and lawyers time to plan for court. Now, Mazi Mazloom has to run to the Superior Court Clerk’s office at least once a week to find out when he has court because information isn’t available online, and hasn’t been since at least 2023.
The new system, which was installed by the Clerk’s office in June, doesn’t work as well as the old one, which was more open and easy to use; this new system does not offer any access to files needed to mount a defense. When I asked Mazloom how he was supposed to get files he said he doesn’t know yet because the Clerk’s office hasn’t shared that information.
Mazloom personally believes that the system swap is to cover up the fact that Connie Taylor has not been doing her job, and he also believes that the exit of Kim Carol, the right-hand of the Clerk’s office, crippled efficiency even more. Carol, Mazloom explains, was the glue holding the entire office together and that even during COVID the Clerk’s office did not have a backlog.
“I’m frustrated,” Judge Leonard said, echoing the exact words Mazloom used when speaking about his own experiences. “I think the bench as a whole is frustrated. We are not used to handling our business in this manner. We expect to be the best run and most efficient court in the state. That’s very hard when your clerk of court does not understand what she’s doing.”
