Vol. 6, No.
3 - Summer 2003
Court Administration Training
Leads to Worldly Experience
As
a young attorney David Pimentel knew that someday he wanted to move into court
management. Despite his legal knowledge and experience practicing law,
Pimentel recognized that he lacked formal training in the “different set of
skills” required for a credible career in court administration.
|
At
the time, Pimentel was clerking for a judge in Hawaii, so he
approached the clerk of court to ask the best way to jumpstart a
career in court administration. “He specifically recommended that
I start taking courses with the National Center’s Institute for
Court Management (ICM),” Pimentel said. He took that advice,
and today Pimentel’s career in court management has taken him far
– literally. Pimentel is the chief of court management for the
International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands,
overseeing the trials of Slobodan Milosevic and other accused war
criminals from the former Yugoslavia. Pimentel credits the Court Executive
Development Program (CEDP), offered through
the ICM as an important step toward his successful transition from
lawyer to court administrator.
|
|
“I
knew that the Tribunal wanted a professional court manager, not just another
lawyer. In the course of my interviews there was particular interest in the
court administration training I had received through ICM and CEDP. My
certification gave me instant credibility,” Pimentel said.
Pimentel
graduated from CEDP in 1998 when he was a Supreme Court Fellow in Washington,
D.C. After completing his fellowship, Pimentel worked as the deputy circuit
executive in the U.S. Courts for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. It wasn’t
long, however, before Pimentel was eager for new challenges. He found one in
2001, when he was invited to go to post-war Bosnia to help reform that war-torn
country’s court administration. “One opportunity led to another, and I
eventually got a USAID contract to write the plan for a complete restructuring
of the courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said.
Soon
afterward, Pimentel was asked to go to Bucharest as a court administration
specialist, leading U.S.-funded court reform efforts in Romania. He was able to
serve there only a couple of months before he was offered the job at The Hague.
Working
in troubled countries with broken court systems has taught Pimentel some
valuable lessons. “Court management is not considered a ‘true
profession’ in most Eastern European countries; management is done by the
‘court president’ (chief judge), who is rarely trained, or qualified, for
the task. These already underfunded courts are, therefore, often mismanaged, and
societies victimized by corruption and conflict see their justice systems as
part of the problem, not part of the solution. But as those systems begin to
rebuild, more and more leaders are recognizing the value of trained and
professional court administrators.”
Upcoming ICM Courses
September 10-12 Managing Human
Resources, Seattle, WA
September 15-17 Grants in Court Administration,
Williamsburg, VA
October 15-17 Caseflow
Management Summit, Denver, CO
October 20-22 Court
Performance Standards, Denver, CO
November 5-7 Court Library
Management, Williamsburg, VA
December 9-11 Advanced Court Performance
Standards: Building
Performance Measurement Systems Step-by-Step
For more information on the Court Executive
Development Program, or to enroll in an upcoming ICM course, call (800)
616-6160, or go to www.ncsconline.org. |
|
