National Association for Court Management
The National Association for Court Management (NACM) [1] is a non-profit organization in the United States that promotes professional management education for court administrators and judges.
In the United States and most other countries in the common law tradition, supervising judges continue their traditional role as the presiding authorities in the bureaucracy of court systems. However, the latter half of the twentieth century saw the increasing professionalization of non-judicial court administrators and staff. In many court systems today, responsibility for court operations is delegated almost entirely to professional court managers, freeing judges and their legal clerks to devote their time to the work of interpreting and applying the law.
NACM offers education, training, and professional certification programs in the principles of court management. These educational programs are designed both for non-judicial managers and for judges in their capacity to oversee court managers. NACM collaborates in training programs with Michigan State University,[2] the National Center for State Courts,[3] and the Institute for Court Management.[4] NACM is well known for its creation of the Core Competencies in the late 1990s, which were revised as the Core,[5] in 2014. NACM has also drafted a Model Code of Conduct for Court Professionals.[6]
NACM was founded in 1985 through the combination of two pre-existing associations: the National Association of Trial Court Administrators (founded in 1965) and the National Association for Court Administration (founded in 1968). It claims to be the largest organization of court management professionals in the world, with more than 1,700 members from the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries.
The current president of NACM is Michele Oken, currently working as an Administrator for the Los Angeles Superior Court. NACM is headquartered in Williamsburg, Virginia.