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Category: Educating Court Personnel

Embracing the Future of Online Learning

By Bronson Tucker, Director of Curriculum, Texas Justice Court Training Center

If your educational agency is like mine, you have worked on developing an online presence for several years, but the educational quality likely has been lagging behind your live offerings. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided the silver lining of a “jump-start” for enhancing, or in some cases developing, an online educational program that is sufficient to address the needs and desires of clientele. For a successful online educational program, the three keys to success are Interactivity, Accessibility, and Accountability.

As I explore these three keys, it may be useful first to identify and describe the delivery methods and software that we have used for online learning in the past, and that we plan to use as we transition into a blended learning environment.

Pre-Recorded Webinar – This is a recording that has a speaker narrating over a video, most often a PowerPoint presentation.

Live Webinar– This is a live online class that has a speaker taking written questions from students and answering them, sometimes with an accompanying presentation, polls, etc.

Module – This is an asynchronous online class that blends several different elements, such as videos, text, images, quizzes, etc.

“Cohort” Class – This is a blended online class, similar to an online college course, that has some self-paced elements like a module, but also can have synchronous elements like live discussions, or online discussion components. This class has to have a limited number of participants.

We are affiliated with Texas State University, which gives us access to two pieces of software that are assisting us in creating both modules and cohort classes – Articulate and Canvas. Articulate is the software that we are using to create modules. There are two different templates that are used in Articulate that we have access to – Storyline and Rise. We are mainly using Rise, which is designed to present like a website, as opposed to Storyline, which shows more like a traditional PowerPoint. One significant strength of Storyline is the ability to create lots of branches for multiple options for difficult processes.

Canvas is the Learning Management System used by Texas State. It allows students to pause progress in a module and resume later, and also allows us to monitor progress, evaluate quiz results, and track completion for compliance with judicial education requirements.

Interactivity – Engage Your Audience

The delivery method that my organization had most frequently used for online learning was pre-recorded webinars. Pre-recorded webinars quickly and easily delivered nuggets of procedural information, but can result in the “tree falling in an empty forest” effect. Maintaining student engagement can be very difficult when using a recording of someone talking as PowerPoint advances along. Tools that are used in live seminars such as small group discussions or poll questions range from unwieldy and difficult to impossible.

To address this, we are phasing out the use of pre-recorded webinars, in favor of the other three delivery methods. Student engagement is easier to achieve in each of those types of courses.

For live webinars, we are using them for courses that require more Q&A time, and more gray areas to discuss, along with using some guest faculty to allow students to pick the brains of experts in a given field.

Topics that are more step-by-step procedure-based topics are shifting over to modules since we have found that retention is much better by having knowledge checks and interactivity engaging the audience. Also, the structure of modules allows the student to revisit specific steps as the need arises, such as the filing of an unfamiliar type of case.

Accessibility – Something for Everyone

Multiple concerns arise when considering accessibility. The most obvious is ensuring that resources are accessible to those with disabilities. We are currently in the process of creating transcriptions for all of our pre-recorded webinars. Additionally, any images need to have descriptors added for screen-readers for the visually-impaired. Many software applications have these tools built-in, while others require manual addition later. Be sure to carefully consider these requirements while evaluating tools for creating and developing online resources.

Another significant issue is technological accessibility, which comes in many forms as well. One distinct drawback with Canvas is that it is only compatible with Firefox. This means that students who use other browsers won’t be able to access the material. This places the onus on us to share that information and do our best to ensure that students can utilize Firefox to access the resources.

Another concern is compatibility with various devices, to meet the student’s needs in accessing online resources. If a person can only access a course on a computer, one of the most important benefits of online education – flexibility – is greatly diminished.

One of the benefits of Articulate is that it automatically optimizes the course for a computer, tablet, and smartphone. It also allows a course to be built that will allow either portrait or landscape orientation, or lock into one orientation. If the orientation is locked, the student, rather than getting illegible information, instead receives a prompt to rotate their device to the correct orientation.

Accountability – Retention and Reporting

Lastly, accountability is a key component in creating effective online education. Including quizzes, knowledge checks, and interactive games, such as sorting or matching, all help the student retain information at a much higher rate than merely allowing them to listen to a recording, potentially while they are also distracted with outside forces, such as other websites, children, Netflix, or other staples of day-to-day life.

Also, tracking and reporting the completion of online education is essential to determine the reach of the information, especially if a state has required judicial education hours, as Texas does. Canvas will automatically track and report students’ progress to our office, which is a tremendous benefit. For our pre-recorded webinars, students fill out certification forms online and send them in. Ensuring that certain activities are completed before certification occurs is available in our modules, but not our pre-recorded webinars, which is another huge reason that we are moving in that direction.

Hopefully, your group is excited about the challenges and opportunities that online education provides! If you have any questions about the material, feel free to email me at bt16@txstate.edu, and I will do my best to point you in the direction of the resources that you need.

Bronson Tucker is the Director of Curriculum for the Texas Justice Court Training Center, where he has worked since 2004. Bronson attended his first NASJE conference in 2005 in Savannah, GA. Bronson is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma as well as the University of Texas School of Law. Bronson lives in Cedar Park, TX, with his wife Amy and daughters Audrey, 13, and Norah, 10.

August 6, 2020
Court Leaders and Coaching
By Nancy Fahey Smith, Owner, Sustainable Change Coaching

According to Kevin Cashman in Forbes magazine, coaching and developing others are among the top three most important leadership competencies. Yet, despite such a high rating of importance, coaching scores as the lowest practiced competency around the world.ⁱ Leaders today have a real interest in learning skills that benefit their organizations, especially in the constantly changing world in which they operate. The courts are no exception.

Time and again when interviewing court leaders around the country, the same pain points come up:
- Low employee retention, especially of younger workers
- Lack of engagement
- Resistance to change
- Poor teamwork
While several factors contribute to these problems, like low pay and difficult clients, research also shows that employees who feel empowered, respected and like they’re making a difference are more likely to stay onboard. In addition, effective managers who are good communicators can boost a company’s retention — and its bottom line.ⁱⁱ

One way to solve these problems is to develop a culture of coaching, that is, a coach approach to leadership. When leaders learn and practice coaching skills with their direct reports, their working relationships are improved, job satisfaction and productivity go up, conflicts are reduced, employees feel empowered and more loyal to the organization. In other words, the pain points mentioned above are reduced, and courts, as well as the public, benefit.

In this article, coaching is defined, leadership trends explored, the relationship between coaching and productivity explained, and the application to court leaders, including judges, spelled out.

What is coaching?

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.ⁱⁱⁱ Coaching creates a dialogue between a coach and coachee that moves a conversation forward and towards goals the coachee is seeking to attain. Unlike mentoring, which draws upon the experience of the mentor, coaching encourages the coachee to find their own solutions to the problems they face. Unlike training, which follows a plan that leads the student to a set learning objective, in coaching, the coachee decides the direction they wish to take and the objectives they wish to achieve. Unlike therapy, which helps the client come to terms with their past, coaching is forward thinking.

Many kinds of coaching and coaches exist, in fact the world of coaching has proliferated over the last two decades. Executive coaching, wellness coaching, personal coaching, performance coaching and many more categories exist. This article discusses how performance coaching impacts organizations like the courts. Performance Coaching is a process where one person (supervisor, manager, leader) facilitates the development and action planning of another (employee, direct report), in order that the individual can bring about changes in their lives and work.

The research shows that coaching can have a very positive effect on employee performance. Individuals who partner with coaches have reported several benefits, including those in the chart below.^iv

All coaches, including leaders who coach their employees, are trained to have a particular mindset: they exhibit a coach approach to leadership. This mindset can be summarized as follows:
- Coaches don’t talk, they listen.
- Coaches don’t give information, they ask questions.
- Coaches don’t offer ideas, they generate ideas from employees.
- Coaches don’t share their story, they tap into the employee’s experience.
- Coaches don’t present solutions, they expand the employee’s thinking.
- Coaches don’t give recommendations, they empower employees to choose.^v
Most leaders say they know how to coach their employees, yet when asked to demonstrate coaching, they instead demonstrated a form of consulting, essentially giving advice or making suggestions such as “First you do this” or “Why don’t you…” or “This worked for me…”. For many, coaching skills are a new skill to learn, a new tool for their leadership toolbox. Leaders do not need to be certified coaches to successfully coach their employees to higher performance and engagement. They need to invest in learning coaching skills and then hone these skills over time. Even a short training targeted at essential skills, along with a safe environment to practice in, leads to a marked improvement in coaching skills.^vi

Leadership trends

In addition to understanding what coaching is and that learning and practicing skills is important, leaders watch trends before they commit valuable resources to training.

Here are what some of the experts are seeing as trends in leadership.
- Need for agility. Leaders and their organizations are becoming / must become more agile to survive and thrive. As leaders, it’s important to adopt a nimble mindset and culture.
- Evolving leadership norms. The age range in the workforce will continue to expand. With the decrease of age-based seniority, leadership will be taken by the best person for the role and will likely shift frequently in an agile environment.
- Foster and sustain employee engagement. Leaders and organizations need to focus on soft skills such as emotional intelligence that have a strong impact on engagement and the effort employees put into communicating.
- Taking a holistic approach to human capital development. Helping employees thrive in all areas of their lives (not just work), will create more engagement, productivity and overall happier employees.
- Leadership empathy. Gen Y and Gen Z talent will continue to leave command-and-control cultures for collaborative workplaces. The ability to understand, relate to and be sensitive to employees, colleagues and communities will be paramount. We will see an even greater emphasis on listening, relating and coaching to drive effective leadership.
- A focus on individual growth. Leaders need to identify and build talent quickly. Helping employees reach their peak potential will be required to help the organization stay competitive and thrive.^vii
These trends influence industry and business, as well as courts and other government agencies. Coaching is taking off because it is helping individuals and organizations not only adapt to change but thrive, and it fits well with the trends outlined above. Courts must change and adapt, or the problems cited in the first paragraph of this article will tear at their very fabric. As one court administrator in Arizona said about the bleeding of younger employees to other industries, “If we don’t change what we are doing, when we retire, no one will be left to run the courts.” As court leaders know, losing an employee costs up to one-and-one-half to two times that employee’s salary. The costs include recruitment, onboarding, training, ramp time to peak performance, loss of engagement of others due to high turnover, higher error rates, and general culture impacts. Several critical areas have a large effect on employee retention, and coaching is by its nature a means to remedy them: Employee engagement (or disengagement), adaptability to change, team building and burnout.

Employee engagement

A Gallup report called “The State of the American Workplace,” published in 2017 estimates that 67% of employees in U.S. companies are disengaged. Of that 67%, 16% are actively disengaged. Disengagement leads to employee turnover, conflict in the workplace, high rates of absenteeism, workers just hanging on until they can retire, and the like. Actively disengaged employees can even sabotage a workplace. On the other hand, highly engaged workplaces are:
- 50% more likely to have lower turnover
- 56% more likely to have higher-than-average customer loyalty (think public trust and confidence)
- 38% more likely to have above average productivity
- 27% more likely to report higher profitability (think more efficient case management)^viii
A coach approach to leadership fosters engagement of employees because it facilitates clear communication about expectations:
- Coaching uncovers blocks to resources
- Dialogues shift from what must be done to what can be done
- Authentic acknowledgement takes place
- The focus is on the person, not just the result
- Shifts in awareness result in sustainable behavioral and developmental change
- Coaching gives space for opinions and ideas
- Coaching connects personal goals and organizational goals
Change management

Another area of serious need as cited by the educators and court administrators interviewed by the author is change management. Courts are places of continuous change, as well as places loyal to precedent and tradition. Change is constant, yet change can cause some of the highest areas of friction or conflict in an organization. People fear change, and coaching can help work through the fear and resistance commonly seen when change is forecast or implemented. Coaching
- Provides a platform to discuss resistance, fear and confusion
- Helps teams and individuals understand the connection between the coming change and their goals
- Allows for discussion about possibilities
- Addresses resource needs
- Addresses obstacles
A coach approach supports employees to move farther, faster, easier, quicker than they would have without a coach. Coaching becomes a “safe container” to discuss and address the INTERNAL fears and resistance individuals have that often affect EXTERNAL behaviors during times of change.

Teamwork

Another area of challenge often cited by court administrators was poor teamwork. Research shows that when coaching is embedded in the culture of an organization, average or even dysfunctional teams begin to turn around and become high performing teams. This happens because coaching
- Models a new, more productive, way of communication
- Promotes trust
- Embeds accountability
- Clears pathways to clarity and focus on common goals and results
- Models acceptance of other’s ideas, opinions and ways of being, even when there isn’t agreement.
Burnout

Finally, when it comes to employee burnout, how can a coach approach to leadership help? In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, foremost expert on burnout, Christina Maslach, points out that burnout is a company problem, not an employee problem. In other words, a company’s culture and leadership create the environment that burns people out. She describes employee motivators as challenging work; recognition of one’s achievements; responsibility; the opportunity to do something meaningful; involvement in decision making; and a sense of importance to the organization. Leaders, Maslach states, could save themselves a huge amount of employee stress and subsequent burnout, if they were just better at asking people what they need.^ix Coaching skills provide the means to ask.

Judges and coaching skills

How can judges use coaching skills? For presiding judges, who are court leaders, the answer is that they can use them in the same way as their court administrator. For other judges, coaching has wide applicability for judges working in family court, where self-represented litigants have become the rule. Since coaching questions are designed to help people arrive at what they need and want, rather than tell them what to do, they are perfect questions for judges to ask self-represented litigants. Coaching questions by design avoid putting people on the defensive. In specialty courts, where judges often interact directly with defendants, the same applies. Using a coach approach helps people in front of the court figure out what they need for themselves and from the courts, while avoiding telling people how to proceed.

In conclusion, a coach approach to leadership involves learning and practicing a specific set of skills designed to bring out the best in people. In the administration of justice, employees of the courts are critical to the courts’ success. Court leaders, from the line supervisor to the presiding judge, can learn and use coaching skills to keep these critical people on board, as well as increasing their engagement, teamwork and adaptability to change. Court leaders don’t need to become certified coaches, rather, they can learn coaching skills and adopt a coach approach to leadership. They will benefit themselves, their employees and their courts in the process.

NOTES

ⁱ Cashman, Kevin. “Five Coaching Practices to accelerate the growth of others.” Forbes, January 29, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevincashman/2018/01/29/five-coaching-practices-to-accelerate-the-growth-of-others/#5fe5daa05388

ⁱⁱ Cheng, Candace. “3 Factors Strongly Linked to Better Employee Retention, According to 32 Million LinkedIn Profiles.” November 20, 2019. https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/trends-and-research/2019/3-factors-linked-to-better-employee-retention

ⁱⁱⁱ International Coaching Federation. Accessed January 15, 2020. http://becomea.coach/?navItemNumber=4090

^iv 2017 ICF Global Consumer Awareness Study. https://coachfederation.org/research/consumer-awareness-study

^v Webb, Keith. “What it Really Means to be a Coach.” Accessed at https://keithwebb.com/what-really-means-to-be-coach/, January, 2020.

^vi Milner, Julia and Trenton Milner. “Most Managers Don’t Know How to Coach but They can Learn,” HBR, August 2018. https://hbr.org/2018/08/most-managers-dont-know-how-to-coach-people-but-they-can-learn

^vii “Leadership Trends To Watch For From Now To 2022,” accessed at https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/08/21/leadership-trends-to-watch-for-from-now-to-2022/#70df3c936658 and “14 Leadership Trends That Will Shape Organizations In 2018,” accessed at https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/01/30/14-leadership-trends-that-will-shape-organizations-in-2018/#50ce4fe15307 from https://www.coachingoutofthebox.com/coaching-resources/blog .

^viii Gallup, State of the American Workplace, 2017. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/238085/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx

^ix Harvard Business Review, “Burnout Is About Your Workplace, Not Your People,” 2019. https://hbr.org/2019/12/burnout-is-about-your-workplace-not-your-people

Nancy Fahey Smith is a coach, teacher, trainer and facilitator with over 10 years of experience working in court training and education, first at the Washington State AOC and then at Arizona Superior Court in Pima County (Tucson, AZ). She is co-owner of Sustainable Change Coaching and Consulting. Nancy branched out into this new business where she and her partner, Leslie Gross, teach court and non-profit leaders coaching skills to improve employee performance, satisfaction, retention, and adaptability to change. She is passionate about helping court leaders create a culture of coaching in their organizations through a coach approach to leadership. She came to the courts with 16 years of experience in education, both as a community college instructor and a high school teacher in Tucson, and as a curriculum coordinator at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. Nancy taught many kinds of court related classes while at the courts, and has a special interest in adult learning theory and application. She speaks periodically at conferences on topics related to judicial education and publishes articles for the National Association of State Judicial Educators (NASJE). Currently, she serves on the NASJE the Communication Committee. She earned her bachelor’s degree in French and History at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, and her Master’s in French from the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. Nancy grew up in a Navy family, married into an Army family and served four years as an Army Intelligence officer. She has traveled widely around the United States and Europe as well as to Peru, Mexico and China. She likes the outdoors, and swims, hikes, bikes and does yoga for fun and fitness. She can be reached at nancy@sustainablechangecoaching.com.
February 19, 2020
Opioid Task Force Calls for Judicial Training, Provides Resources

In November, the National Judicial Opioid Task Force released a wide-ranging report examining how courts can best address the ongoing opioid epidemic. The task force was created by the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators.

Among the task force recommendations was more training for judges and court staff on opioids, the impact of addiction on the brain, and evidence-based treatment for all substance use disorders. The recommendation in the report specifically states, “It is critical that judges understand the basics of addiction, treatment, and recovery and how to best understand and address addiction within the justice system, which currently stands as the primary referral source to get individuals to treatment.”

To begin to address the educational need, the NJOTF, in partnership with the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatrists and the National Judicial College, assembled a cadre of expert judicial and medical trainers to provide specialized education for judges in every state and U.S. territory. In November 2019, the NJOTF offered a three-day training that featured top faculty and specialists from the judicial and medical communities. Participants included one state court judge from each state and territory, nominated by that jurisdiction’s chief justice. Participants sat in on expert presentations of the materials, and participated in discussions about the subject matter and effective adult learning techniques. Participants committed to making themselves available to serve as judicial faculty members in their own states and regions during 2020, as a way to deliver training on substance use disorders and reach judges in every state.

NASJE was contracted through the task force to provide follow-up assistance to these judges and to provide a directory to its members of the faculty willing to teach on substance use disorder topics. That directory can be found in the Members Only section of the NASJE website.

In addition to providing the specialized education for judges, other resources were developed by the NJOTF that are beneficial for judges and staff. The primary resource is the Opioid Resource Center for Courts found at https://www.ncsc.org/opioids. This is a comprehensive tool kit for courts and justice professionals to address the addiction crisis. The website provides publications, current best practices, policies, research, statistics and bench cards related to opioids in the courts.

Another resource available for educators is the Opioid Response Network funded through a grant by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA). The network was created to provide education and training at a local level free of charge for specific needs. Requests for assistance can be submitted online.

For more information regarding the NJOTF or its resources, please contact Lee Ann Barnhardt at lbarnhardt@ndcourts.gov.

January 19, 2020
NJC and JSI Release Science Bench Book for Judges, Offer Webcasts

Judges are the guardians of our system of justice, but forensic developments in the last 50 years have made their jobs significantly harder. However, judges do not need to become scientists in order to make appropriate evidentiary decisions about scientific evidence. Rather, they need to have a detailed understanding of their role in admitting scientific evidence.

To achieve this, the National Judicial College and the Justice Speakers Institute are pleased to present a new online resource, Science Bench Book for Judges, to assist judges in making their rulings.

To help understand the book, several of the distinguished authors of the Bench Book will deliver eight webcasts in July, August, and September, with the first occurring on July 9. Thanks to funding from the State Justice Institute, the Bench Book and the webinars are offered at no cost to judges.

Please invite your judges to join the webinars. All webinars are at 12pm Pacific/3pm Eastern and will last 75 minutes. For more information, visit the NJC website.

July 3, 2019
BOOK REVIEW: The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein

By Nancy Fahey Smith, NASJE Western Region Director

“An unjust law is no law at all.” —St. Augustine

This quote from St. Augustine says it all for me after reading Richard Rothstein’s well-researched book The Color of Law (AMAZON). As an educator who spent the last 10 plus years working for the courts, where the rule of law reigns supreme, this book challenged what I thought I knew about segregation, racism, public housing and the law. As such, this enlightening book is valuable to judges and court employees for understanding who comes to court and how they get there.

Richard Rothstein’s thesis is that local, state, and federal laws, rules and policies deliberately caused segregation in public housing, beginning primarily around World War II when severe housing shortages for war workers caused the government to build public housing in large numbers where war industries existed. While the common supposition is that housing segregation is de facto (people live in segregated neighborhoods out of personal choice), Mr. Rothstein argues that segregation in housing is in fact de jure (a result of laws and policies of the government). His arguments are compelling and are a lesson for everyone in the court system, in fact for all citizens, about why housing segregation really happened, and what might be done about it.

While currently most public housing is targeted towards the poor, in its early days, public housing was built for working- and middle-class families. Since few houses were constructed during the Depression, a huge shortage of housing developed in the 1930’s. When the economy ramped up with as WWII began, millions of workers, both white and African-American, migrated to cities where those factories offered work. The government invested in public housing to provide war workers with homes. But rather than make this housing available to all workers in all areas, the laws passed by Congress and the policies of the Public Works Administration, and later the Federal Housing Authority, required subdivisions to be segregated. The 1949 Federal Housing Act, which Mr. Rothstein calls the “poison pill” of housing legislation, affirmed segregation practices in law. In addition, many more white subdivisions were built than African-American subdivisions, forcing black people into crowded conditions or dwellings far from their work sites as they tried to find adequate housing. In addition, black subdivisions tended to be built in less desirable locations, for example, near heavy industry and dumps, where polluted conditions compromised the health of those forced to live there. No other choices were available to them.

In addition, African-American workers were hired only for the most menial and lowest-paying positions, until the dire need for workers forced war industries to hire them for any position for which they had the aptitude. But the greater pay these workers earned did not allow them access into white subdivisions even when they could afford to live there.

According to Mr. Rothstein, and supported in public record, the results of forcing segregation where it had previously not existed or was minimal, like in California, were many, and continue to exist and harm African-Americans today. In addition to negative health conditions mentioned above, another result of forced segregation was overcrowded neighborhoods which turned into slums. With housing for African-Americans in short supply, families subdivided their homes and took in renters, multiple families shared homes, and the resulting overcrowding caused neighborhoods to go downhill. In addition, housing segregation reinforced school segregation, and black schools were underfunded and inferior to white schools. Since black families could not buy houses that they could afford in better neighborhoods, they were not able to accumulate wealth and education the way white families could, a disparity that continues today. Mr. Rothstein explains clearly how government-sanctioned housing segregation negatively impacted, and continues to negatively impact, black families in areas of health, achievement gaps, wealth disparities, and mass incarceration.

As an example of how housing segregation continues to hurt African-American families, Mr. Rothstein shows how in the time prior to the great recession of 2008-2009, lenders targeted low-income people and African-Americans (both working- and middle-class) for toxic mortgages in far greater numbers than middle class white Americans. When the recession occurred, these families lost most of the wealth they had earned over decades. African-Americans who lost their wealth with their homes far exceeded white Americans in the same situation.

Mr. Rothstein finishes his book with possible remedies to the continued discrimination against African-American families. His solutions are sometimes radical, a fact he admits. As one example, he cites the gentrification of older neighborhoods around city centers. Mr. Rothstein states that while gentrification is not necessarily a bad thing, unless something is done to help the poorer neighbors living in these neighborhoods so that they can either upgrade their homes and stay or purchase reasonable housing elsewhere, gentrified neighborhoods end up richer, whiter enclaves and poorer residents end up in slums since those areas are often all they can afford when rents become unaffordable where they used to live.

The Color of Law is rich with well-documented history and details of how public housing became segregated, how it hurt African-Americans, and how it continues to harm them. The fact that this segregation was de jure and not de facto provides a rich area to begin a discussion with judges and other court employees. This book is recommended for all court employees and is an excellent choice for any law and literature class or book club discussion.

Formerly the Pima County (Arizona) Field Trainer and a Superior Court Training Coordinator, Nancy Smith has over 10 years of experience working in court training and education, first at the Washington State AOC and at Pima County Superior Court (Tucson, AZ). She currently is a partner at Sustainable Change Coaching and Consulting. She came to the courts with 16 years of experience in education, both as a community college instructor and a high school teacher in Tucson, and as a curriculum coordinator at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. Nancy taught many kinds of court related classes, including topics such as implicit bias and faculty development, and court related topics like due process and procedural fairness. She has a special interest in adult learning theory and application. Nancy has branched out into a new business, where she and her partner plan to teach court leaders coaching skills to improve employee performance and retention. She speaks periodically at conferences on topics related to judicial education and publishes articles for the National Association of State Judicial Educators (NASJE). Currently, she serves on the NASJE Board as the Western Region Director as well as on the Communication and Conference Committees. She earned her bachelor’s degree in French and History at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, and her Master’s in French from the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. Nancy grew up in a Navy family, married into an Army family and served four years as an Army Intelligence officer. She has traveled widely around the United States and Europe as well as to Peru, Mexico and China. She likes the outdoors, and swims, hikes, bikes and does yoga for fun and fitness. She can be reached at nancy@sustainablechangecoaching.com.

April 10, 2019
Midwest Region Webinar Available to NASJE Membership

Please join members of the Midwest Region at a timely Webinar to be held on July 27 from noon to 1:30 Central Time.

Taking the Lead: Responding to Harassment in the Workplace

As you know, the #MeToo movement has generated a lot of attention on sexual harassment in the workplace. In addition, some high-profile disclosures regarding judges sexually harassing subordinates have increased attention to sexual harassment within organizations that support the educational needs of judges. Many of us have reviewed, revised, or revamped sexual harassment training efforts for judges and court staff. The conference in Austin features a session about what works and what does not work in terms of sexual harassment training. At the end of the day, none of us want to make the problem worse; we are trying to do what we can to make it better.

This webinar continues along the path of how to do sexual harassment training in a way that helps solve the problem. In this session, we will look at the intersection of race and sex, considering how training efforts may be missing some of the critical elements to make them effective.

Join our faculty, Dr. Anthony Simones, Director of Citizenship Education, Missouri Bar (moderator), Kimberly Carson, Judicial Education Specialist for the Iowa AOC, and Jennifer Juhler, Director of Education and Training for the Iowa AOC. Dr. Simones has graciously agreed to moderate a discussion of these issues with Kim and Jennifer who have considerable experience training on fairness issues and who spend a significant amount of time talking with each other about fairness issues in general, race and sex specifically.

July 3, 2018
New professional development resource for judges

A new NCSC report, Elements of Judicial Excellence: A Framework to Support the Professional Development of State Trial Court Judges, is now available. It is a first-of-its-kind resource for judges, mentors, educators, and state court leaders who support and seek to enhance their state systems of judicial professional development.

The report provides information about the general types of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that judges themselves believe are important to judicial excellence, as well as recommended strategies to support professional growth.

The Elements of Judicial Excellence framework is based on the views of Illinois state Circuit Court and associate judges as shared with project staff through over 100 hours of interviews, 24 hours of focus group discussions, and follow-up surveys with all participants.

This project was supported with funding from the State Justice Institute and NCSC.

The framework and complete project final report can be found at the NCSC website.

December 19, 2017
NASJE Mentor Program needs volunteers
By Lee Ann Barnhardt, Co-Chair Membership and Mentor Committee

The Membership and Mentor Committee is looking for individuals to serve as mentors for new members.

The origins of mentoring can be traced back to ancient Greek mythology. When Odysseus went to fight in the Trojan War, he put his trusted friend, Mentor, in charge of his son, Telemachus. Ever since, the term ‘mentor’ has generally come to define someone with more experience, imparting their wisdom and values on someone with less experience.

You don’t need to be a Greek warrior to be a NASJE mentor, but you do need to be willing to share your passion for judicial branch education with others. The time commitment for a mentor/mentee relationship is typically 6-12 months, but the way that time is structured is flexible to fit individual needs and schedules.

If you mentor people in NASJE, you learn things about how things work at different levels and in different places. You learn things that make you a better educator and leader. You build your network. When you share your knowledge and experiences you can change the world for that person.

Mentoring is about teaching. When you teach something to another person, you discover all of the details that you don’t completely understand yourself. That means mentors make themselves smarter in the process of teaching others.

Mentoring is also about relationships among colleagues. When you mentor, it also increases your feeling of connection to your colleagues and to our organization. And, if you and your mentee continue working in the same field, you gain a valuable ally and sounding board for years to come.

I have had the honor of being mentored by some of NASJE’s best and also serving as a member. Below are my “Top 10 Reasons” to be a NASJE Mentor.
1. You wouldn’t be where you are today it if wasn’t for mentors in your own life.
2. You meet new people.
3. You have a positive effect on the organization.
4. You can change the world for someone.
5. You learn stuff.
6. You feel like you did something that matters.
7. You are motivated to do your own job better.
8. You build long lasting relationships within other educators.
9. You can redefine your own career path and goals.
10. You have the chance to share your passion with others.
Mentoring also serves the organization. The benefits to NASJE are member retention, increased engagement by members, professional development of members, the transfer of knowledge and skills, and the development of future leaders.

Remember how confused and stressed out YOU were when you started your new job in judicial branch education? By acting as a mentor, you can help make the transition easier on someone else.

The time, the commitment, and the dedication that is involved in mentoring does not go unnoticed. If you are a NASJE mentor now or have been in the past, thank you! If you know a mentor, ask them about their mentoring commitment. You may be surprised at what they have to say about the process.

If you are interested in serving as a mentor or learning more about the program, NASJE needs you. Please contact Lee Ann Barnhardt, Co-Chair of the Membership and Mentor Committee, at lbarnhardt@ndcourts.gov.
July 21, 2017
Judicial Forensic Science Education

By Jennifer Wildeman, Education Projects Specialist, Arizona

As technology plays an increasingly significant role in our society, it has become commonplace in the courtroom. New technological practices and discoveries bring forensic science topics such as DNA, latent print examinations, and digital evidence to the forefront of our court system. With technology playing a greater and greater role in resolving cases, it became obvious to Arizona judicial educators that many judges lack the educational background needed for a sufficient understanding of the scientific principles behind the forensic evidence they see in court.

Similarly, the majority of scientists lack an adequate understanding of the legal tenets that guide our criminal justice system and have difficulty presenting scientific information to judges. In short, “lawyers do not understand science, and scientists do not understand the law” (Chezem in Dawson, 2016). As such, the Arizona Judicial Education Services Division identified a need to address judges’ knowledge gap in the area of forensic science. Guided by the strategic agenda set forth by Arizona Chief Justice Scott Bales, judicial educators developed a multi-faceted plan for crafting a judicial forensic science education program.

First, judicial educators organized a workgroup composed of judges, scientists, and attorneys who worked together to identify ways that forensic science education could be delivered to Arizona judges. Working with the Arizona Supreme Court AOC Education Services Division, this workgroup identified three educational approaches: a multi-day conference focused specifically on forensic science topics, the addition of forensic science sessions in the training program for all new Arizona judges, and the creation of a forensic science resource webpage that judges can refer to on an as-needed basis.
The workgroup focused initially on the forensic science conference.

To identify topics of greatest need among our judiciary, the workgroup conducted a statewide needs assessment. The results obtained from the assessment served as a guide in creating an agenda that included topics such as: forensic biology and DNA, latent print examinations, ballistic comparisons, toxicology, and the role of judge as gatekeeper. At the conference, both local and national experts addressed these topics. For example, a law school professor provided the background for the topic of forensic science in general, a scientist from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) spoke to the future of forensic sciences, and local law enforcement and crime lab personnel addressed issues local to the state of Arizona.

Over one-quarter of Arizona judges attended the inaugural judicial forensic science conference. Education Services received overwhelmingly positive feedback. Evaluation comments such as “good legal information…useful and practical” and “interesting and informative” indicate that participants found the topics to be relevant and useful for understanding evidence and testimony in the courtroom. In addition to positive evaluation comments, workgroup members received informal feedback suggesting that judges widely support future forensic science training opportunities.

Next, the workgroup focused on including forensic science sessions during mandatory training programs for new judges. These sessions provide an overview of the forensic science challenges judges can expect to see in their courtrooms. In addition to providing in-class instruction, we partner with local forensic scientists to provide our judges with an on-site tour of our local crime laboratory, in order to give judges the opportunity to see first-hand what a crime lab looks like, learn about the capabilities of the lab itself, and speak with the scientists who work there.

During the crime lab tour, judges hear presentations from several different units of the lab, including: crime scene response, forensic biology/DNA, firearms examination, controlled substances, toxicology, and latent print examinations. The tour offers a unique opportunity for experiential learning, since the judges not only view demonstrations, but actually use some of the laboratory equipment themselves. The judges enjoy having the chance to see the lab and speak with scientists. Following our first crime lab tour, one judge commented “I am so grateful for this tour. I think it is a valuable addition to new judge orientation.” Overall, the tour has proven to be a successful way to provide another opportunity for our judges to learn about forensic science.

Finally, the workgroup tackled the creation of a forensic science reference webpage. The group wanted judges to have access to a single repository of forensic science information including articles, websites, legal opinions, and reports. Given that the field of forensic science is rapidly changing, the group urged the creation of a dynamic webpage that can be updated on a continual basis, instead of a static bench book updated only periodically. The webpage is currently under construction and will be managed by an AOC Education Services staff member, who will work closely with judges to maintain current information and update the webpage as needed.

While challenges to providing effective judicial forensic science education still exist, this multi-faceted approach provides a foundation for future training opportunities. Utilizing a variety of training methods ensures that judges throughout the state have access to information on these important topics in a timely manner. This combination of in-person and online training provides flexibility to adapt as scientific understanding changes over time.

REFERENCES
Dawson, Jim. “Forensic Science: A Time of Transformation.” National Institute of Justice. Issue Number 277. September 2016. https://www.nij.gov/journals/277/pages/forensics.aspx (February 1, 2017).

Jennifer Wildeman has been with the Arizona Supreme Court’s Education Services Division since 2014. She has worked with Arizona courts since 2007, and has been a NASJE member since 2015. As an Education Projects Specialist, Jennifer works closely with subject matter experts throughout Arizona to help develop timely and relevant trainings for judges and court staff throughout the state. In addition, Jennifer trains court staff on topics ranging from communication to legal authorities.

May 9, 2017
Utah Courts Create Academies to Enhance Employees’ Career Advancement

By Rob Godfrey

In State Court systems around the country there are many positions that have a definitive career ladder but there are many that don’t. The Utah State courts Education Department has launched academies to help a wide range of employees prepare for advancement.

Two academies were designed to prepare non-supervisory and middle-management employees for future higher level management and leadership opportunities. Even in their infancy, these academies have measurably enhanced the academy graduates’ management and leadership skills.

In a parallel succession planning effort, the Administrative Office of the Courts has collaborated with the Michigan State University’s Judicial Administration Program to offer a university-recognized certificate in Judicial Administration. The first round of MSU judicial administration students graduated in August 2016. That class was comprised of Utah’s Trial Court Executives, Clerks of Court and Chief Probation Officers. The second round of MSU judicial administration students, comprised mainly of managers, is scheduled to graduate in December, 2017.

The MSU curriculum is designed around core court competencies as developed by the National Association of Court Management, (NACM). To graduate, the students must culminate their coursework by successfully completing a “capstone project,” which improves their court’s administration of justice.

The Utah State Court’s Academies’ succession planning strategies emphasize weeklong curricula. This unique innovation demonstrates that the Utah AOC is a learning organization which is committed to ensuring future excellence.

Overall, 26% of academy graduates were promoted to a higher position within a year and a half after graduating. The first 2014 Court Skills Academy saw a 42% promotion rate among its graduates.

Prior to attending the academies, every student was asked to self-assess their skills and abilities in three dozen court skill categories. After attending the academies, they were again asked to self-assess their skills and abilities along those same categories.

One hundred percent of academy graduates indicated their proficiencies along every single learning objective, skill, and ability had improved. In fact, the majority of skills and abilities showed very significant improvement according to post-academy evaluation measurements.

Immediate supervisors were also surveyed as to their academy students’ pre- and post-academy skill levels. The supervisor survey results uniformly confirmed that academy graduates’ court skill levels improved across the board.

Rob Godfrey is Conference Coordinator for the Utah Administrative Office of the Courts in Salt Lake City.

May 3, 2017