Court Leader's Advantage

Numerous organizations, including courts, are embracing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.  With that increasing acceptance, we are also seeing increasing resistance, and it is important to address that resistance directly.  On the December episode we discussed the question “can hiring criteria, particularly for managers and supervisors, be objective?”  This month we are going to explore the growin...

January 26, 2023, A Question of Ethics Conversation Episode: A Conversation on Courts and Ethics What actions can a court take to optimize the hiring of ethical staff? What can you do to ensure that the people you hire will adhere to your court’s Code of Conduct? Relying on the book by Bruce Weinstein, The Good Ones: Ten Crucial Qualities of High Character Employees , the Ethics Subcommittee explo...

February 21st, 2023, Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode We see this growing crisis everywhere. We pass the cardboard sign at the intersection asking for donations and wishing us: “God Bless.” We see the blue tarp and shopping cart half hidden in that small grove of trees next to the freeway. We see him sleeping on the sidewalk over the grate. Although we know the crisis is growing, we don’t...

January 17th, 2023, Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode Every state in our nation has a Judicial Code of Conduct. Every judge in each state is obligated to follow that state’s Code.  Since 1973, most Federal judges have been subject to The Code of Conduct for United States Judges.  There is only group exempt from the duty to follow these codes. That group consists of the Justices of...

September 22, 2022, A Question of Ethics Episode: A Conversation on Courts and Ethics We are not stockbrokers or day traders, but in our role as court employees we learn a lot. We know about patterns of litigation against businesses and against professionals in the community. We know about protection orders filed against real estate agents; we know about leaking basement litigation; we know about...

December 20th Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode Courts have committed to the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion particularly in recruiting and selecting court employees. This commitment however has not been without controversy. One criticism has been that personnel recruitment and selection should be entirely objective and merit based. An evaluation format often cited as an exa...

A Question of Ethics Conversation August 15, 2022, Episode The COVID Pandemic brought the use of technology to the forefront of our conversation worldwide. Technology is expanding at breakneck speed. Is it out stripping courts' ability to manage new technological innovations? Relevant Ethics Canons Canon 1 Avoiding Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in All Activities 1.1 Performing Cour...

November 15th 2022, Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode The public’s perception of our courts continues to be a topic of concern and curiosity for court professionals. Last month we discussed finding of the National Center for State Courts 2021 State of the State Courts survey that found that public trust in the courts had declined to 64% from a high in 2018 of 76%. This month we will take a...

October 18, 2022 Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode What do we know about how the public views our courts? We know that the public’s trust and confidence in courts has been slipping over the years. The 2021 National Center for State Courts State of the State Courts survey found that public trust in the courts along other institutions has been declining for some time. In that survey 64% of re...

September 20th Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode Obtaining customer feedback, obtaining usable feedback, obtaining enough of it to be able to rationally modify court programs, all of these are major hurdles. And yet getting good customer feedback is so important. It is important to complete the loop: to plan, to act, to check results, and then to refine. And this effort has been made even m...

August 16, 2022, Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode In this episode, we ask the question, “What should our courts be doing now?” This month we bring our discussion on behavioral health and the courts home. In previous episodes we talked about the extent of the problem nationally and how it affects each community; we discussed the need for community collaboration; we explored the challenge of...

July 19th 2022 Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode Bail Reform has been praised as an effective way to correct a societal wrong. The movement's byword has been “bail does not keep the most dangerous in jail: it keeps the poorest.” Despite this argument, Bail Reform is receiving increasing pushback. Bail Reform aims to curb or eliminate cash bail for people who are in jail awaiting trial and c...

June 21st Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode Online Dispute Resolution has been us in various forms since the 1990s, although it really became widely accepted a little over five years ago. By contrast, widespread acceptance of virtual mediation seems to have been an outgrowth of the COVID pandemic. Today many courts around the country use one form or the other (or possibly both) to quickly a...

A Question of Ethics Conversation May 2022 This episode of A Question of Ethics will continue to explore diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and NACM’s commitment to helping provide equal justice. This session was recorded after the Ethics Subcommittee Conference Call on April 28th, 2022. The questions the group explored include: · Does focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies, an...

May 17th Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode This country’s mental health crisis is by no means limited to adults. We know that young people frequently suffer from traumatic events. This fact has only been made worse by the scourge of COVID. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center revealed that well over a third (37%) of U.S. high school students struggle with stress, anxiety, or depressio...

April 19th Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode One unintended consequence of the COVID pandemic has been a phenomenon called “The Great Resignation.” Large numbers of American workers have either quit their jobs or (after being laid off) have chosen not to return to their previous employer. CBS News has reported an estimated 20 million people left their jobs in only the second half of 2021. W...

A Question of Ethics Conversation: Summer 2022 Edition of the Court Manager NACM has made a commitment to the values of providing equal justice regardless of race, gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation or identity, disability, or social economic status. What is the court’s ethical obligation, particularly when it comes to implementing court operations? This episode was a recorded conversation...

March 15th Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode In our last two episodes on mental health and the courts we talked about the fact that traditional criminal case management is not meeting the needs of the people we serve. We must develop a new comprehensive and collaborative model. We need to create a fair and effective caseflow management system that meets the challenges of those with behavior...

February 15th, 2022 Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode We’ve been talking about work-life balance for decades. It is a perennial challenge. What has changed in these last two years is, of course, COVID. For the first time in the history of America’s court system, large numbers of employees are teleworking, many are frightened of catching the Coronavirus in the office, others are concerned ov...

Tuesday, January 18, 2022, Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode In November we started our discussion on how mental illness is impacting our nation and particularly our courts. In this episode, we are taking a deeper dive into the criminal justice realm, specifically the challenge of competency to stand trial. The task of determining if a defendant is competent to stand trial, to assist in one...

These last two turbulent years have brought into sharp relief the dynamic tension between a court’s duty to keep both employees and the public safe, and the duty to respect the privacy and the personal choices of those very same employees and the public. This conversation is taking place at a time when many of us thought (or at least hoped), that these kinds of discussions were behind us. We could...

December 21st Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode The preliminary results from NACM’s Voice of the Profession survey have revealed folks' number one issue this year: Public Confidence in the Courts. Over 95% of those responding reported that they either agreed or strongly agreed that NACM needs to advocate on behalf of the courts regarding the public’s confidence in our court system. This res...

November 16th Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode The challenge of mental illness is impacting America nationwide. It impacts our states, our communities, our courts, and our entire justice system. The courts are at the center of the clash between competing funding choices, community concerns, and those struggling with behavioral health issues. Local jails and detention centers are the larges...

Tuesday, October 19, 2021, Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode The national movement to reduce or eliminate cash bail continues to spark heated discussion. Several states, including New Jersey and Alaska, have instituted bail reform. Other states such as California have repeatedly seen attempts at reform fail, either in the legislature or at the ballot box. Proponents argue that bail criminal...

Tuesday, October 5, 2021, Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode A cyberattack is truly a different kind of threat, but that threat is real and growing. It takes a different kind of approach to defend against such an attack. Different questions need to be asked well before an attack occurs. Cybersecurity experts advise that having responses to these questions is essential to effectively preparin...