REFLECTIONS ON EDUCATION IN JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION

Justice System Journal, 2005 by Baar, Carl

This mini-symposium draws attention to a fascinating and important phenomenon: the renewal of university programs focused on administration and management of the courts.

Following a wide-ranging breakout session at the 2003 annual conference of the National Association for Court Management, Geoff Gallas and Gordy Griller have asked whether "our profession [is] in a period of decline." Their first indicator of "possible decline" was "the virtual disappearance of the three founding graduate degree programs in judicial administration" (Gallas and Griller, 2004:7). Thus, the renewed interest in university courses of study in the field, reflected in this mini-symposium, demands not only our attention but also our reflection. Given the overall health and steady growth of the court management profession, what accounted for the decline of univer' sity programs in the field? In turn, what accounts for the renewed interest, and what initial assessment can be made of the programs that have persisted and are developing?

This article will focus first on the conditions that existed at the time that university education in court management began some thirty-five years ago. I will argue that both public and private soft money drove the original growth and success of court management education and helped make it academically fashionable. Over time, the growth of court administrative institutions and changes in both academic fashion and the flow of soft money turned university programs away from a focus on court administration.

The article will then turn to current developments, arguing that the renewed recognition of the universities' role in professional education of court administrators reflects not only the maturity of the field and the profession, but also new forms of academic organization and soft money that have their own dangers.

THE ORIGINAL CONCEPT

When the formal education of court administrators began in 1970, it was generally understood that the newly formed Institute for Court Management, affiliated with the University of Denver Law School and funded with a large grant from the Ford Foundation, would recruit midlevel professionals from outside the courts and give them the special training needed to take on emerging managerial positions within the courts, while master's-level graduate programs would focus on the long-term staff development needs of those court systems. ICM's role, prominent because of the endorsement and involvement of new Chief Justice Warren Burger, would be temporary. The three university programs-at the University of Southern California, American University, and the University of Denver-would be the focus for continuing professional development in the field.

Of course, those in the field will immediately recognize that the reality is the reverse of the original concept. ICM continues, albeit as a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Center for State Courts, and its programs continue to evolve (see Ericksen, 2005). The three university programs, whatever their current status, are no longer the focus of professional development in court administration. The University of Denver's graduate program has long since shifted its focus to legal-i.e., law office-administration and away from the MSJA that Harry Lawson nurtured for so many years after stepping down as Colorado's state court administrator.

The institute's original Court Executive Development Program was six months long, beginning with a nine-week residential seminar in the Colorado mountains, followed by a three-month practicum and a two-week capstone seminar. A Ford Foundation grant paid for students to attend the original program and to do the practicum in a court location, unless they were already employed by a court. The key, however, was whether the students recruited from outside would secure positions in the courts.

In fact, as Geoff Gallas, while a member of the ICM staff, found from a survey of the status of institute graduates after three years of the program, a substantial number of newly hired court managers were employed in newly created positions funded by federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) grants, almost all of which came from state formula funds ("block grants") administered by state-level executive branch criminal-justice-planning agencies.

Were it not for the federal government's emphasis on criminal justice in the 1970s, the absorptive capacity of the courts would have been even lower. After all, elected clerks of court, whose power bases were anchored in county politics, were unlikely to hire ICM graduates-even before the clerks found out that their offices were usually seen by ICM faculty as part of the problem, not part of the solution. And positions as trial court administrators were only beginning to be created. Those that were established without federal grant assistance were typically authorized on the initiative of local trial judges, who demanded services that elected clerks of court were not providing, and occasionally by state court administrators anxious to create competing management structures (see Berkson and Hays, 1976).l