Michelle L. Karczeski: The Best Clerk of the Circuit Court Harford County Has Had

When Michelle L. Karczeski was sworn in as Clerk of the Circuit Court for Harford County on December 1, 2022, she became the first woman ever elected to that office. The distinction matters. Mary E.W. Risteau was appointed clerk for a brief stretch in the late 1930s. Linda F. Settle held the job as interim clerk after James J. Reilly retired on September 30, 2022. Karczeski is the one voters put there. Her story in Harford goes back much further than that ceremonial oath in the Bel Air courthouse. She was born in the county, graduated from Fallston High School — where she was part of a women's state-championship lacrosse team — and earned a bachelor's degree in geography, with a focus on cartography and urban planning, from Frostburg State University in 1992. She added a Project Management Professional certification in 2007. She lives in Bel Air. She and her late husband, Dave, raised two sons, Matt and Ryan. Dave died in June 2025. Before she ever appeared on a ballot, Karczeski had already spent more than fourteen years working with the Maryland Judiciary. As the owner and president of SETA Consulting, LLC, a woman-owned firm she founded in Bel Air in 2008, she provided project management, help-desk, and IT consulting support to courts across the state. That was not theoretical knowledge. It was in-the-weeds work on the systems the Clerk's office uses every day: the revenue-collection system that replaced legacy cash handling in District and Circuit Courts statewide, a pilot jury-management system in Cecil County that later expanded, the Attorney Information System, MDEC financials, and the Judiciary's budget and finance systems. That is why the fit has been a good one. Voters often treat Clerk of the Circuit Court as a ceremonial line on the ballot. It is not. The office keeps land records, administers juries, runs court financial systems, issues marriage and business licenses, and processes the filings that decide whether a deed is good, a case moves, or a judgment gets paid. In a county that keeps growing, errors in those files are not paperwork problems. They are other people's property and legal rights. Since taking office Karczeski has emphasized professionalism, modernization, staff support, and public access to records. In her 2026 League of Women Voters questionnaire she described a 53-person office — 52 deputy clerks and one appointed chief deputy — and said she was serving as President of the Maryland Clerks' Association, working with clerks across the state on local business practices. That is a real voice for Harford in the machinery that actually runs Maryland's circuit courts. She is running for a second term on November 3. The Republican primary on June 23 was unopposed. Official returns: 19,623 votes. The other side of the ballot is a scramble, not a record. Democrat Shadé D. Bowman was designated by the Harford County Democratic Central Committee on March 10, 2026, appeared unopposed on the June primary ballot, and took 13,287 votes. On August 5 she declined the nomination. Two days later the same committee designated Matthew J. Brown — the same Matthew J. Brown who had just lost the Democratic primary for County Executive to Barbara Osborn Kreamer, 7,436 to 7,606. Brown is an educator in Harford County Public Schools with a background in customer service, operations, legal support, and the American Red Cross. He holds a political-science degree from UMBC, with a minor in behavioral psychology, after starting at Harford Community College. He has never held elected office. Nothing in that résumé is court administration, land records, jury management, or the financial systems the Clerk's office runs. Six weeks after losing a county-executive primary, he is the Democratic nominee for one of the most technical offices on the ballot because a central committee needed a name. This is not a job where on-the-job learning is a luxury voters can afford. Karczeski has already done the work — more than three years in the office, and more than a decade inside the judiciary's systems before that. Brown is asking Harford to hand him the keys to the land-records room because the other party's first choice stepped aside in August. Harford County deserves a Clerk of the Circuit Court who shows up with experience, not a leftover line on a sample ballot. Michelle L. Karczeski has spent her career, before and during her time in office, demonstrating exactly that. She is the best clerk this county has had. She has earned another term. Follow me on X - @OhlendorfT15425If you find value in this material and wish to help defray the cost of bringing it to you, please visit:https://buymeacoffee.com/tohlendorf61