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NACM Receives Prestigious Howell Heflin Award

On November 20, 2003, at the United States Supreme Court, the State Justice Institute (SJI) made their annual Howell Heflin award to NACM for its Core Competency Guidelines project. Each year since 1996, the Board of Directors of the State Justice Institute has made this award to recognize "an innovative SJI supported project that has a high likelihood of significantly improving the quality of justice in state courts across the nation." The Core Competency project involved hundreds of NACM members and educators working cooperatively to answer the question: What is it that court leaders should know and be able to do? 

This project was coordinated by a special committee of NACM; the Professional Development Advisory Committee. This committee was chaired by Frank Broccolina, a long term NACM member and former president. Noted judicial administration scholar, Geoff Gallas served as project director of this initiative. Look for an article on the competencies by Mr. Gallas in a future issue of the Communiqué.

This honor reflects the hard work and dedication of the NACM members. Without their active participation and suggestions these competencies would not have been developed. This honor recognizes that the competencies have been very well received by the court community. Project Director Geoff Gallas, noted "We are very proud that the validity and relevance of the Core Competencies have been validated by their use in 43 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, and by others throughout the world including Canada, Hong Kong, and Singapore."

Frank Broccolina made the following observation about the significance of this project to the organization and the profession in general. "The Core Competencies and their supporting Curriculum Guidelines have come to define judicial administration as a profession. The Heflin Award acknowledges and validates NACM's decade of work by hundreds of dedicated individuals. It has been a singular honor for me to have had an opportunity to contribute to this seminal effort." 

The complete competencies were published in a special edition of the Court Manager this past summer and are also available through the NACM website http://www.nacmnet.org/CCCG/cccg_homepage.htm 

The State Justice Institute is a federally funded nonprofit that makes grant awards to improve the quality of justice in the state courts nationwide. Since its inception, SJI has awarded over 125 million in grant funding.  SJI has been a major supporter of the Core Competency Project.  NACM joins six previous recipients of the Howell Heflin award.