SPOKANE, Wash. -- It is the place where the cycle of justice begins and ends.
Climb the stairs to the third floor of the courthouse and you will find the second busiest office in the county.
"Everything starts here, goes into the court and through the law firms, comes back here, maybe back to the courts again, but when it's all said and done, it ends here," Timothy Fitzgerald, Spokane County and Superior Court Clerk, said.
"It's busy from the time I get here until the time I leave," Clerk Shannon Orlando said.
"I joke all the time about pushing an IV pole around with caffeine right into the vein," Clerk Charity Sirmans.
On average, the clerk's office handles 11,200 customers a month and does almost $1 million a month in financial transactions. They also maintain more than 160,000 legal records for the county.
“We have records that go back to 1878, they're on microfilm,” Fitzgerald said.
But for as busy as they are, not a lot of people seem to know what they do.
"I don't think people know. We do civil cases, domestic cases, collect restitution,” Collection Deputy Jason Metcalf said.
"I'm pretty sure they have no idea what goes on here in the clerk's office, all the fun we have," Sirmans said.
They have to focus on having a little fun to be able to handle all the heavy stuff. They typically see people who are already not having the best day. I have seen them get yelled at to the point where they have to call security, which happens about once a month.
"People come in and threaten to shoot the place up and come over the counter at us and yell and call us names, you know we deal with that stuff a lot in here,” Sirmans explained.
When they say they deal with a lot of stuff, they are not kidding.
"This dude came in and wanted to pay with like $75 worth of pennies. We have a policy now because of him, the penny man," said Metcalf.
Somehow, no matter what's happening in front of the counter. The folks behind it always seem to remain calm and polite.
“I think we just try to be patient with them, they're confused, they have no idea what they're doing half the time when they come in and it's frustrating," Sirmans said.
"You have to just kind of be like a duck and let it roll off your back," Orlando said.