Clerks deal with litigation workload: Raleigh official gets ready for flood lawsuit with 5,000 plaintiffs and 400 defendants

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Processing and filing enough paper to obliterate a small forest.Keeping track of countless trial exhibits and more than 400 jurors.

Sitting in on civil trials that could drag on for months whilelawyers for thousands of plaintiffs argue over minutiae with lawyersfor hundreds of defendants.

Raleigh Circuit Clerk Janice Davis isn't too worried about it.

With a staff of six deputies, her office in Beckley has beenpreparing for a mass litigation case involving more than 5,000plaintiffs and 400 defendants related to July 2001 flooding thatdevastated eight counties.

"This office is just posting the paperwork and whatnot," Davissaid. "So …