The Institute for Court Management (ICM) Fellows program is ICM’s flagship program. Established in 1970, it marked the creation of the ICM. Since then, it has graduated over 1,300 alumni from 49 states and 12 countries. Many graduates agree completing the ICM Fellows program is one of their proudest achievements. Graduates include state court administrators, Burger Society members, Burger Award winners, NACM presidents, ICM Faculty, and other important court leaders.
The primary goals of the Fellows Program are to:
- Reinforce and expand learning from the certified court manager and court executive course content
- Familiarize participants with the court administration canon
- Provide opportunities to practice and demonstrate leadership skills
- Lead participants in a review of the history and legacy of court reform and their active engagement in court improvement as an essential leadership skill and activity
- Reinforce the use of evidenced-based decision-making for state court leaders
- Provide a comprehensive review and understanding of social science research methods and techniques
- Lead participants to engage in a court-related research project and prepare a written report of publishable quality
- Provide opportunities in webinars and small group discussions for participants to understand, consider, and debate the most important current issues and concerns of courts, reinforcing the importance of perpetual and peer-to-peer learning as essential leadership skills
The Fellows curriculum is spread over sixteen months and consists of the Coursework phase, including a short residency at the NCSC headquarters, the Project phase in which students engage in a supervised research project and court improvement plan, and a Presentation phase where their final paper and recommendations are presented to a panel of court executives for review and response. Throughout most of its history, the Fellows graduation ceremony has taken place at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Interested in learning more? Click “Prospective Fellows” to learn more about becoming a Fellow; or, click “Fellows Alumni” to read Fellows papers, learn about the most recent graduates, celebrate the Star Award winner, and access the Fellows directory.
Please don't hesitate to reach out to icmfellows@ncsc.org with any questions!
