Rule 79.Books and records kept by the Clerk and entries therein

Three short provisions, all pointing at the same authority.

The record. The Clerk keeps a record of all civil actions in such form and manner as the Chief Judge directs.

Notations. The Clerk, or other staff the Chief Judge directs, makes record entries noting court orders and dispositions in every matter whenever they occur — including the dates of conferences, hearings and trials, the mediator, master or judge, and the date of any decision. That is more than a list of filings: it records who heard the matter and when, which is what an appellate court, or a litigant trying to reconstruct a history, actually needs.

Statistics. The Clerk keeps such statistics in such form as the Chief Judge directs.

What is striking is what the rule does NOT do: it prescribes no format at all. In many courts the docket's form is fixed by rule, and changing it means amending the rule. Here the Chief Judge sets it administratively, which is why the court could move to eFiling under Rule 79.1 without rewriting this one.

The docket is also what a litigant checks to see whether a filing arrived and whether an order has been entered — and under Rule 58 the order IS the judgment, so what appears there is what starts the clock.