Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County

The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County is the clerk of Circuit Court of Cook County, located in Cook County, Illinois. The office plays a critical role in maintaining court records and facilitating judicial operations for the nation's largest unified court system, handling millions of cases annually.^[1]

Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County
Incumbent Mariyana Spyropoulos since December 4, 2024
Term length	4 years

Office description

The office was first established in 1831, the year that Cook County was created. In 1848, the office of Cook County recorder was merged into the office of clerk of the Circuit Court. The office was accordingly renamed as "clerk and recorder".^[2] For decades thereafter, the office served not only as the Circuit Court's clerk, but also served as the ex-officio county recorder of deeds.^[3] This ended in 1872, when the county's recorder of deeds was again created as a separate office.^[3]

On January 1, 1964, the more than 200 courts of Cook County were unified.^[4] Replacing the separate clerks that existed for different courts was a single popularly elected clerk of courts for newly merged Circuit Court of Cook County.^[4]

Pre-1964 officeholders

State's Attorney		Term in office	Party	Notes	Cite
	R. J. Hamilton	1831–1841	Democratic		[2][5]
	H.G. Hubbard	1841–1843			[2]
	Samuel Hoard	1843–____			[2]
	Norman T. Gassette	1868–1872	Republican		[6]
	Jacob Gross	1872–1884	Republican		[7][8]
	John E. Conroy
	Joseph P. McMahon				[9]

Officeholders since 1964

The following individuals have held the office since the modern iteration of the Circuit Court of Cook County was established in 1964.

State's Attorney		Term in office	Party	Notes	Cite
	Joseph B. McDonough	1964–1968			[4]
	Matthew J. Danaher	December 1968–1974	Democratic	Elected in 1968 and 1972	[10]
	Morgan M. Finley	1974–December 1988	Democratic	Appointed in 1974; elected in 1976, 1980, 1984	[11]
	Aurelia Pucinski	December 1988–December 1, 2000	Democratic (1988–1998) Republican (1998–2000)	Elected in 1988, 1992, 1996
	Dorothy A. Brown	December 1, 2000–December 1, 2020	Democratic	Elected in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016
	Iris Martinez	December 1, 2020–December 2024	Democratic	Elected in 2020
	Mariyana Spyropoulos	December 4, 2024–present	Democratic	Elected in 2024

Recent election results

Clerk of the Circuit Court general elections
Year	Winning candidate	Party	Vote (pct)	Opponent	Party	Vote (pct)	Opponent	Party	Vote (pct)	Opponent	Party	Vote (pct)
1984[12]	Morgan M. Finley	Democratic	1,260,257 (61.32%)	Deborah L. Murphy	Republican	794,882 (38.68%)
1988[13]	Aurelia Pucinski	Democratic	1,170,558 (59.38%)	Edward R. Vrdolyak	Republican	800,783 (40.62%)
1992[14]	Aurelia Pucinski	Democratic	1,349,837 (68.39%)	Herbert T. Schumann, Jr.	Republican	486,185 (24.63%)	Deloris "Dee" Jones	Harold Washington Party	137,642 (6.97%)
1996[15]	Aurelia Pucinski	Democratic	1,149,216 (70.37%)	Sandra M. Stavropoulos	Republican	397,191 (24.32%)	Philip Morris	Harold Washington Party	64,204 (3.03%)	Janet Dennis	Justice Party	22,581 (1.38%)
2000[16][17]	Dorothy A. Brown	Democratic	1,197,773 (72.94%)	Nancy F. Mynard	Republican	444,336 (27.06%)
2004[18][19]	Dorothy A. Brown	Democratic	1,365,285 (74.06%)	Judith A. Kleiderman	Republican	478,222 (25.94%)
2008[20][21]	Dorothy A. Brown	Democratic	1,315,731 (68.29%)	Dianne S. Shapiro	Republican	517,115 (26.84%)	Paloma Andrade	Green	93,906 (4.87%)
2012[22]	Dorothy A. Brown	Democratic	1,291,499 (70.44%)	Diane S. Shapiro	Republican	541,973 (29.56%)
2016[23]	Dorothy A. Brown	Democratic	1,345,696 (67.22%)	Diane S. Shapiro	Republican	656,232 (32.78%)
2020[24]	Iris Y. Martinez	Democratic	1,549,615 (73.03%)	Barbara Bellar	Republican	572,169 (26.97%)
2024	Mariyana Spyropoulos	Democratic		Lupe Aguirre	Republican		Michael Murphy	Libertarian