Last month I virtually attended the 2024 Midyear Conference of the National Association for Court Management (NACM).  The conference theme was “Leadership Opportunities and Challenges for our Nation’s Courts – Engaging a New and Diverse Workforce.”  This was the third time I have used the livestream option to attend a NACM conference, and I highly recommend this option to anyone who cannot attend in person.  NACM is doing an excellent job making conference programs available and enhancing the virtual experience.

Here are highlights from the sessions I was able to attend – please note that NACM has posted the complete videos of livestreamed sessions on its website at Conference Videos – National Association for Court Management (nacmnet.org).

  • Opening plenary: “Engaging Teams Across Generations (how to future-proof your court, engaging Generations Y & Z)” – presented by Dima Ghawi. After a nice review of the current generations in the workforce (Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millenials/Gen Y, and Gen Z) and their overall characteristics, Ghawi reminded us of several important things to keep in mind.  At an individual level, we are all different, and generational descriptions are broad characterizations of group traits and behaviors.  Thus, be careful to not blindly ascribe overall characterizations to generational cohorts and individuals.  The rest of the session was devoted to advice about how to better appreciate and engage people at work, in particular with Gen Y & Z staff members.  First, create a “fitting work culture” where leaders focus on sharing the “why” of how things are done, foster a truly inclusive environment, connect work to a greater cause (intrinsic motivators), and be transparent. Second, make expectations very clear and provide timely feedback. Third, provide education and career development opportunities and mentoring (internally and externally). Last, honor the fact that Gen Y & Z value a flexible workplace that includes work-life balance, hybrid work, and variable work schedules.
  • Breakout session: “Managing Today and Preparing for Tomorrow; Recruiting, Developing, and Managing the Leaders of Tomorrow Today” – presented by Zenell Brown and Richard Lynch.  This session was a good follow up to the opening plenary and asked attendees to consider the question of “is your workforce sustainable.”  Too often we think of workforce management as a day-to-day enterprise, often forgetting to take a step back and think strategically about the long-term efforts leaders can take to ensure success.  The speakers covered key actions that can be taken to attract, develop, and retain quality staff to meet the evolving workplace.  These include a commitment to apply DEI principles, have a quality succession plan, proactively manage change, and emphasizing what the organization can and will offer staff members at every stage of the employment cycle.
  • Breakout session: “Unstoppable Courage: Shattering Limitations and Daring to Thrive” (plenary follow up) – presented by Dima Ghawi.  This inspirational session used the personal story of the presenter to deliver a strong message of empowerment. After a life of being controlled by family and marriage, Ghawi used education (“knowledge is light; ignorance is darkness”) and the metaphor of kneading dough to make bread (learned from her grandmother) as the keys to her growth and becoming an independent, professional woman. Each person should examine what is your “destiny,” what you want for yourself, what is holding you back, and what are the ingredients to your achievements.  Make space for yourself – meet fear with action and make the choice to improve and overcome challenges.
  • Breakout session: “Alternate Uses for Guided Interviews” – presented by NCSC staff members.  This excellent, very practical session showed how “guided interviews” as part of court websites can improve court access and user experiences, which in turn increases court performance.  Guided interviews are a means to funnel court information to users that is relevant to their circumstances, presented in a easily understandable format (a “TurboTax”-like process).  Traditionally, guided interviews have been used to help users generate forms and other documents. Now, this functionality is being refined and expanded to areas such as landlord-tenant and debt collection cases (which comprise a very large proportion of state court cases).  The goal is to provide only the information users need at the point in time and process that they are experiencing.  The systems aid in user navigation and orientation, eligibility via self-triage of options, and understanding of what to expect next.  This results in a decrease in public inquiries and workload, process improvement (due to system review and design), satisfying users with trusted information, and helping walk the line between legal advice or not.  The presenters described key steps in the creation of guided interview systems, and that this can be done at moderate cost without a technical developer via existing tools and technology.
  • Breakout session: “Best Practices for Equitable and Inclusive Hiring” – presented by Creadell Webb.  Another very practical session, this time focusing on the essential workforce management function of attracting and hiring staff.  Webb shared specific examples of applying diversity, equity, and inclusivity principles at every stage of the hiring process to avoid bias and other problems:  policy considerations; job descriptions; posting positions; reviewing applications; job interviews; and subsequent activities.  I highly recommend viewing the session recording and the helpful PowerPoint presentation.
  • Breakout session: “Data Visualization and Storytelling” – presented by staff of the Orange County Superior Court.  The presenters began by describing how data and its analysis can be a critical tool in court management. For example, court data are an asset that is often underutilized in measuring performance. It is important the data analysis is presented in an accessible way. The session covered a wide variety of examples, both good and bad, of data visualization via tables, scatterplots area charts, tree maps, geospatial charts, and more.  The goal is to have the visualizations tell an understandable story of what is going on in the court.
  • Breakout session: “Can we lead leaders to an ethical tomorrow?” – presented by Peter Kiefer and Karl Thoennes.  As usual, Karl and Peter led a very interactive session, exploring scenarios that pose difficult ethical issues in the workplace.  Scenario one involved the recruitment and hiring of a personal friend; scenario two involved the promotion of a subordinate who is a personal friend; and scenario three involved court DEI efforts and the decade-old telling of misogynistic jokes by the court administrator. The session effectively used audience polling software to indicate how audience members would handle the ethical issues – this generated lots of discussion. I also highly recommend viewing this fun and informative session to see for yourself.
  • Closing plenary session: “Building Psychological Safety at Work; Creating an Outwardly Inclusive Mindset” – presented by Desmond Lomax. Relying on the Arbinger Mindset Model (Mindset and the Basics of Arbinger’s Work – Arbinger), Lomax closed the conference by posing that “mindset drives behavior,” and thus DEI efforts need to focus on mindset as a primary action area.  There are two mindsets, internal and external:  in the former we focus only on our own personal goals and objectives, without consideration for our impact on others; in the latter we see others as people who matter like we do, taking into account their needs, challenges, and objectives as we focus on collective results.  Too often the internal mindset is in charge of our actions, and making the shift to an external mindset is a critical factor in the effective implementation of DEI in the workplace.

As you can see, the NACM conference had many meaningful educational sessions (note, there were other livestreamed sessions that I did not attend due to conflicts – for instance, I can also recommend the “Court Leadership and the Mandate for Resilience” session presented by Janet Cornell).  Although attending NACM conferences in person is wonderful, virtual attendance is also rewarding (and cost-effective!). For instance, there were multiple video discussions in between education sessions aimed at the virtual attendees during which we were able to pose questions and otherwise interact. The next NACM conference will be held in New Orleans next July 21-25 [Upcoming Conferences – National Association for Court Management (nacmnet.org)].

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Published by Norman Meyer

After 38 years as a trial court administrator in the state and federal courts in the U.S., Norman continues to write, teach, and otherwise participate in judicial administration activities world-wide. In particular, he is active in the International Association for Court Administration (IACA) as a past Regional Vice President and Advisory Board member, in the National Association for Court Management (NACM) as a Past President (having received NACM's Award of Merit), and as an Associate of the Justice Speakers Institute. Norman has extensive experience working on international Rule of Law projects, particularly in the Russian Federation, Serbia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Albania. Norman is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of New Mexico (Political Science and Russian Studies), and he received the Master of Science in Judicial Administration from the University of Denver College of Law.

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