Definition
An examiner is an officer or person officially charged with conducting an examination — of witnesses, of evidence, of applicants, or of accounts — in a judicial, administrative, or regulatory context. The term carries distinct meanings depending on the proceeding:
1. Judicial examiner. An officer appointed by a court to take the testimony of witnesses outside the ordinary courtroom setting. The examiner receives sworn testimony — either through written interrogatories or oral questioning (viva voce) — and reduces it to a record for use in the proceeding. Appointment is typical where a witness is located abroad, is too ill or infirm to appear in court, or where the court's procedural rules call for preliminary examination of witnesses before a master or officer of the court.
2. Administrative examiner / hearing examiner. In modern administrative law, an official designated to conduct formal hearings on behalf of an agency. This role evolved into what federal practice now calls an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) under the Administrative Procedure Act, though "examiner" and "hearing examiner" remained the standard terminology for decades after the APA's 1946 enactment.
3. Regulatory and licensing examiner. An official who reviews applications, credentials, or competency — as in a patent examiner at the USPTO, a bank examiner reviewing financial institutions, or a state licensing board examiner evaluating candidates for professional licensure.
4. Tax examiner. In IRS practice, the agent or officer who conducts an audit or examination of a taxpayer's return. "Examination" is the IRS's preferred term for an audit, and the revenue agent conducting it is often referred to as an examiner.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A person who investigates someone or something; a person who sets or marks an examination.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): One who examines, tries, or inspects; one who interrogates; an officer or person charged with the duty of making an examination — as an examiner of students for a degree, or an examiner in chancery or the patent office.
The common meaning tracks the legal meaning more closely than most terms, but researchers should note the gap: in ordinary usage, "examiner" emphasizes evaluation of competency or knowledge (setting a test, grading papers). In legal usage, the dominant sense is procedural — an examiner is a designated officer who receives testimony or inspects records under authority of a court, agency, or statute, with the results carrying formal legal weight.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
- Court examiner / examiner in chancery: Appointed to take witness testimony outside court proceedings.
- Hearing examiner: Administrative officer presiding over agency adjudications; largely superseded by "Administrative Law Judge" in federal practice after 1972.
- Patent examiner: USPTO officer who reviews and acts on patent applications.
- Bank examiner: Regulatory official who audits and inspects financial institutions on behalf of a state or federal banking authority.
- Tax examiner / IRS examiner: Revenue agent or officer conducting an audit of a taxpayer's return.
- Medical examiner: Officer (typically a forensic pathologist) charged with investigating deaths; distinct from the older coroner system.
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Why It Matters in Research
The term "examiner" shifts meaning dramatically depending on the era, the jurisdiction, and the type of proceeding. This creates real traps for corpus researchers.
In historical English and early American legal materials, "examiner" almost always refers to the judicial witness-examination function — the chancery examiner who took sworn depositions. Researchers working in equity records, chancery proceedings, or early federal court files will encounter this usage consistently. Do not conflate it with administrative or regulatory meanings that postdate the development of the administrative state.
The administrative law transition is the biggest source of confusion in mid-twentieth-century materials. The APA of 1946 established "hearing examiners" as a protected class of federal agency adjudicators. In 1972, the Civil Service Commission officially redesignated the position as "Administrative Law Judge." Documents from roughly 1946 to the 1980s may use "hearing examiner," "trial examiner" (common in NLRB practice), or "ALJ" interchangeably or in transition. Know which era your source comes from before drawing conclusions about the officer's authority or independence.
In tax research, "examiner" in IRS documents is a term of art pointing to the audit function. The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia entry on IRS audits traces how examination procedures are structured and what rights attach at each stage — essential context for reading IRS administrative records.
The medical examiner is a separate branch entirely, with its own statutory frameworks in each state, and should not be researched through general "examiner" doctrine without first isolating that specific subtype.
Patent examiner practice has its own dense body of USPTO procedure and is best approached through administrative law and IP-specific sources rather than general legal dictionary meanings.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary (1st and 2nd) define examiner exclusively in the English judicial sense: a court-appointed officer who takes witness testimony, either by written interrogatories or viva voce, particularly where the witness cannot attend in person. Both editions are consistent and nearly identical in their treatment, reflecting that this was the dominant legal usage at the time of publication.
What neither edition captures is the later administrative law development — the hearing examiner of the New Deal and APA era, the IRS examiner of modern tax practice, or the forensic medical examiner. These are post-publication developments that researchers must supply from other sources. The historical dictionaries are reliable for the judicial deposition-taking function but silent on everything that came after. Treat them as a floor, not a ceiling, for this term.
Webster's 1913 is actually more expansive than Black's on this point, noting patent office and chancery examiners in the same breath — a reminder that the regulatory examiner role predates the modern administrative state, even if it was not yet theorized as such.
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Jurisdictional Note
State practice varies significantly on which officials carry the title "examiner." Some states retain "hearing examiner" rather than ALJ for agency adjudicators. Medical examiner systems exist alongside or instead of coroner systems depending on the state. Bank examiner authority and procedures differ between state-chartered and federally chartered institutions. Researchers should identify the specific statutory or regulatory source of authority in the relevant jurisdiction before generalizing from one state's usage to another.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
IRS Audit and Examination Overview — The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia (tax_127)
Confrontation Clause — Right to Cross-Examination — The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia (criminal_182)
License Application, Examination, and Issuance Procedures — The Law Mind Administrative Law & Government Encyclopedia (admin_113)
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