Rush, C.J.
Local rules cannot confer, revoke, or override subject matter jurisdiction, but they may properly prescribe venue—the particular location among courts that have jurisdiction for cases to be heard. Here, the Lake Superior Court has four divisions, “civil (including probate), criminal, county, and juvenile,” Ind. Code §§ 33-33-45-3, -21(a) (2008), none of which is a “separate probate court” that would have exclusive adoption jurisdiction, see I.C. § 31-19-1-2(a). N.E. filed two adoption petitions in one of the Civil Division courts, violating a local rule that all adoptions (a type of probate case) must be filed in the Juvenile Division. The trial court, in turn, declined to transfer the cases to the Juvenile Division, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Largely in an effort to adhere to dicta in one of our previous cases, it held the local rule impermissibly impinged on the jurisdiction of the Superior Court’s “civil (including probate)” division. We disagree. The local rule does not impermissibly expand jurisdiction beyond statutory bounds, but simply prescribes venue—and like all local rules, it is binding on the courts and litigants. The trial court erred in refusing to transfer these adoptions to the Juvenile Division, and we reverse and remand accordingly.
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I. Because Lake County Has No “Separate Probate Court,” the Exclusive Jurisdiction Provision of Indiana Code section 31-19-1-2 Does Not Apply.
As a threshold issue, we address the Court of Appeals’ reliance on Indiana Code section 31-19-1-2(b), which provides that the “‘probate court has exclusive jurisdiction in all adoption matters.’” J.T.D., 5 N.E.3d at 789 (quoting I.C. § 31-19-1-2(b)). But the first part of that statute unambiguously states that it applies only “to each Indiana county that has a separate probate court.” I.C. § 31-19-1-2(a). So in Saint Joseph County, for example, this statute would confer exclusive adoption jurisdiction on that county’s Probate Court, see I.C. § 33-31-1-1—which is created separately from either its Circuit Court under the Indiana Constitution and Indiana Code chapter 33-28-1, or its Superior Court under Indiana Code chapter 33-33-71. But in Lake County, by contrast, the “civil (including probate)” division is expressly established as a division of the Superior Court, I.C. § 33-33-45-21(a), and not a separate statutory court. The Court of Appeals was therefore correct to recognize that Lake County has no “separate probate court.” J.T.D., 5 N.E.3d at 790 (citing T.B., 622 N.E.2d at 924). But that also means that, by its express terms, Indiana Code section 31-19-1-2(b) does not apply, and thus does not confer exclusive adoption jurisdiction on the Superior Court’s Civil Division.
II. The Lake Superior Court Is One Court of Broad Original, Concurrent Jurisdiction, Shared Among Its Divisions—So the Divisions’ Caseloads Are a Matter of Venue, Not Jurisdiction.
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Here, the Lake County statutes expressly create one Superior Court and consistently refer to it as a single court: “There is established a superior court in Lake County (referred to as ‘the court’ in this chapter).” I.C. § 33-33-45-3. But that one court “is divided into civil (including probate), criminal, county, and juvenile divisions,” with instructions that “[t]he work of the court shall be divided among the divisions by the rules of the court.” I.C. § 33-33-45-21(a).
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We conclude that the Lake Superior Court’s four statutory divisions are not jurisdictional and therefore reverse the trial court.
A. By Their Plain Language, Indiana Code Sections 33-33-45-3 and -21 Create Four Divisions of One Court, Authorized to Divide Caseloads Among Its Divisions.
As discussed above, Lake Superior Court is a single unified court, referred to as such by the singular term “the court” throughout the chapter. I.C. § 33-33-45-3. So like all Superior Courts, it has “original and concurrent jurisdiction in all civil cases and in all criminal cases,” including probate and thus adoptions as well, I.C. § 33-29-1.5-2(1), unless one of the Lake County-specific statutes overrides that general rule, Sanders, 466 N.E.2d at 428. And one section of the chapter clearly does so, by declaring that Lake County’s “juvenile court has exclusive jurisdiction over a child” taken into custody in the county for “an act that would be a misdemeanor traffic offense if committed by an adult.” I.C. § 33-33-45-6(b) (emphasis added). But nothing in the section that creates the court’s four divisions, I.C. § 33-33-45-21(a), nor anything else in the entire chapter, even mentions “jurisdiction” at all—let alone confers “exclusive” jurisdiction on any particular division. Reading the statute as a whole, it is unlikely that the General Assembly would draft such a subtle jurisdictional provision in section 21 after speaking so clearly in section 6. We are therefore reluctant to read the two-word parenthetical “(including probate)” as vesting exclusive probate jurisdiction in the Civil Division.
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We therefore conclude that the Lake Superior Court’s four divisions are merely descriptive of venue, not prescriptive of rigid jurisdictional boundaries. “Indiana courts have only such jurisdiction as is granted to them by the state constitution and statutes”—but “[v]enue and jurisdiction are not the same.” Benham v. State, 637 N.E.2d 133, 136–37 (Ind. 1994). “[V]enue statutes and rules do not confer jurisdiction but rather prescribe the location at which trial proceedings are to occur from among the courts empowered to exercise jurisdiction.” Id. at 137. Understanding the divisions to share the full subject matter jurisdiction of the Superior Court as a whole, and their names to be only a matter of venue that may therefore be varied by “rules of the court,” is the only way to harmonize those provisions. In other words, there is only one Lake County Superior Court, and its divisions are for administrative convenience and venue, not jurisdictional limits.
B. Our Statement in In re Adoption of T.B. That the Juvenile Division Lacks Probate Jurisdiction Is Not Controlling.
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Accordingly, we are persuaded that T.B. does not preclude our analysis of Indiana Code section 33-33-45-21(a). Instead, we believe that the Lake Superior Court’s divisions are imbued with the same broad subject matter jurisdiction as the court as a whole, and their statutory names are merely descriptive of venue. N.E. argues this cannot be, since it would counterintuitively permit adoptions to be filed in the Criminal Division. And while that is true as a jurisdictional matter—that is, an adoption judgment rendered in the Criminal Division would be merely voidable, not void—it overlooks Lake County’s binding local rules for venue of various case types, which “divide the work of the court” as the statute authorizes. We therefore turn to those local rules.
III. Because the Caseload Allocation Plan Did Not Contravene a Statute, the Trial Court Lacked Discretion to Retain Venue of These Adoptions.
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But having jurisdiction over adoptions did not make the trial court a proper venue, because the Caseload Allocation Plan provided otherwise. Such local rules, “when adopted and published, . . . have the force and effect of law,” Magnuson v. Billings, 152 Ind. 177, 180, 52 N.E. 803, 804 (1899), and are binding on both “the court and all litigants,” Gill, 970 N.E.2d at 646. As we explained in Magnuson,
A rule of court is a law of practice, extended alike to all litigants who come within its purview, and who . . . have the right to assume that it will be uniformly enforced by the court, in conservation of their rights, as well as to secure the prompt and orderly dispatch of business. Furthermore, a rule adopted by a court . . . becomes a law of procedure therein, in all matters to which it relates, until rescinded or modified by the court.
152 Ind. at 180, 52 N.E. at 804. And because the Caseload Allocation Plan is consistent with the controlling statutes, the trial court was bound by the Rule’s venue provisions. Thus, N.E. was obligated to file her adoption petitions in the Juvenile Division; and when she failed to do so, the trial court was similarly obligated to yield venue to the Juvenile Division.
We note that subsequent to the Court of Appeals’ decision, Lake County has amended the Caseload Allocation Plan to assign adoptions to the Circuit Court and certain courts of the Civil Division, effective the first day of 2015. Lake LR45-AR1-01(I)(13)–(14) (effective Jan. 1, 2015). At oral argument, DCS represented that the revision was solely a response to the Court of Appeals’ decision, and that the overall preference of the Lake County courts would be to retain the system as it existed under the 2009 amendment. In view of today’s decision, either version of the Caseload Allocation Plan is permissible, so we leave the promulgation of local rules to the local courts who must abide by them. For this case, it is sufficient to note that N.E.’s adoption petitions are subject to the Caseload Allocation Plan as it existed when the petitions were filed. We therefore reverse the trial court’s denial of DCS’s motion to transfer these adoptions to the Juvenile Division pursuant to the then-existing Caseload Allocation Plan.
Conclusion
The parties and both of the previous courts were all partly correct in their analyses. The trial court was correct that it did have subject matter jurisdiction over adoptions and that the Caseload Allocation Plan was a matter of venue and not jurisdiction. Yet DCS was correct that the trial court was bound by the Caseload Allocation Plan and therefore obligated to transfer the adoption to the Juvenile Division. Because nothing in Indiana Code chapter 33-33-45 restricts the probate jurisdiction of any of the Lake Superior Court’s divisions, each division—including the Juvenile Division—is imbued with the same jurisdiction as the court at-large. Therefore, even though the Caseload Allocation Plan’s provisions establish only venue and not jurisdiction, they are binding on the court and litigants. Lake County was free to adopt a Caseload Allocation Plan establishing exclusive venue for adoptions in the Juvenile Division as a matter of administrative convenience and efficiency, and that Rule is binding on the court and litigants.
Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s denial of DCS’s motion to transfer and order these adoptions transferred to the Juvenile Division consistent with the Lake County Caseload Allocation Plan that was in effect at the time N.E. filed these adoptions.
Dickson, Rucker, David, and Massa, JJ., concur.