INGHAM COUNTY - From traffic tickets, to settling disputes to appointing legal guardianship, people all around the nation go to court when handling legal business. In every court there is a judge whose job is to hear cases and carry out the law set by the constitution. Even though the court systems have been around since the beginning of our nation, many people fail to grasp the concept of what happens in each division.

“I think that courts in general are difficult for people to kind of put a handle on,” said Chief Judge Janelle Lawless. “You know most people don't know much about the court system or the judicial system unless they're involved in it.”

So in order to further educate residents, here is a brief breakdown on what takes place in the courtrooms of Ingham County.

55th District Court
Location: 700 Buhl St. Mason, MI 48854
Current Judge(s): The Honorable Donald L. Allen Jr. and The Honorable Thomas P. Boyd.

“The district court is what some people call the peoples court,” said Chief Judge Thomas P. Boyd. “We have regular people who make mistakes, or have a problem and district court judges have the opportunity to address that situation to help them.”

Judges in a district court are responsible for making rulings for cases such as:

• Civil cases of $25,000 or less.
• Juvenile cases such as shoplifting, property theft, etc.
• Landlord/tenant cases.
• Small claims.
• Traffic tickets.
• Nuisance ordnance violations.
• Child proceedings.
• Domestic violence injunctions.
• Insolvency proceedings.

30 Judicial Circuit Court
Location: Veteran Memorial Courthouse
313 W. Kalamazoo St. Lansing, MI, 48933.
Current Judge(s): Honorable Janelle A. Lawless

Historically in Circuit Courts, judges had to travel to numerous locations in a specific geographic region to hear cases. The locations in the various regions were known as a circuit, which is how the term circuit judge came about. However, today, a Circuit Court Judge is usually only assigned to just one courthouse —their duties including presiding over cases such as:

• Civil cases with controversies seeking damages in excess of $25,000 or more.
• Felony criminal matters.
• Family cases that involve divorce/child matters.
• Adoptions
• Name changes
• Emancipations
• Parental consent waivers
• Domestic relation matters

And while not in court, Judge Janelle Lawless said there are many administrative items that a circuit judge deals with.

“(We do) anything form the budgeting to staff to trying to look at our policies to make sure that if there’s a law that changes that we're following that and keeping up to date with other judges,” Lawless said.

Ingham County Probate Court
Location: Veteran Memorial Courthouse
313 W. Kalamazoo St. Lansing, MI, 48933.
Current Judge(s) Honorable Richard J Garcia (Chief Judge) and Honorable R. George Economy.

“The predominate thing we do is handle cases for folks who are not able to take care of themselves,” said Chief Judge Richard Garcia.

Probate Court, which is often known as the place where people go to solve issues related to death but Judge Garcia said the duties go well beyond that. Some of the cases an Ingham county probate judge will hear are, but not limited to:

• Filing and safekeeping of wills.
• Probating of estates of deceased persons.
• Distributing portions of the estate to beneficiaries.
• Trust administrations.
• Processing mental health matters.
• Appointment and supervision of guardians and conservators for minors, adults and disabled persons.

“People take advantage of our young and people take advantage of people who are older who don’t yet have the same capacity of when they were younger and a guardian or a conservator can really make a difference in whether somebody is taken advantage of or not,” Garcia said.