Whitfield County Court Leaders Play Key Role In State Board

When the Skye Mims murder trial recently concluded with a guilty verdict, Brad Butler could take a deep breath and rest a little easier…for a few minutes anyway.

In his often-hectic role as court administrator of the Conasauga Circuit Superior Court, it’s Mr. Butler’s job to make sure all the different parts of the local judicial system mesh together as smoothly as possible.

For the high-profile Mims trial, that included  a lot of behind-the-scenes work ironing out the logistical details for one of the most publicized cases here in years.

“For example, we had to get witnesses here from Michigan,” Mr. Butler said in his second-floor office at the Whitfield County Courthouse, “so we had to put them up in hotel rooms and make other arrangements. If a witness to a crime that happened here moves, it’s our job to make sure we get them back to testify at our trial. Sometimes that might mean we have to rearrange flights to do that, and we’ve had to get interpreters to come here from California, though not for this trial.”

Of course, not all court cases garner as much publicity as the Mims trial did. That doesn’t mean the others don’t get as much attention from Mr. Butler, who takes every case seriously.

That could be one reason why Mr. Butler was recently elected president of the Georgia Council of Court Administrators, a statewide association created by the legislature in 1997 that aims to provide a variety of tools to help administrators do their jobs the best they can.

Another Whitfield County justice system leader has also been tapped to serve as a GCCA board member for 2015-16. The appointment of Robbie Walka, court administrator for Whitfield County Juvenile Court, gives the county two voices on a panel that includes just nine other people.

The current board is making history of sorts since officials from GCCA decided for the first time to have this year’s board members sworn in. Conasauga Superior Court Chief Judge William Boyett administered the state oath to Mr. Butler, Ms. Walka and other board members during the council’s recent spring meeting.

“To me it’s a big deal to have two people from the same circuit serving on a state board,” Mr. Butler said. “I think that speaks well of Whitfield County.”

Professionalism is vital

During his term as GCCA president, Mr. Butler says he is emphasizing professionalism.

“I don’t always portray that – because I can be a complete goofball,” he quips, “but the people that have come before me at GCCA have done a fantastic job of laying the footprint and doing some things that got this organization off the ground.”

While in office, Mr. Butler hopes to add some pizzazz to the association’s website (www.gccaonline.org) and wants to make sure that the twice-a-year conferences (one in the north end of the state, the other in the south end) are worth the drive for members.

“That’s a big deal for me,” he said. “People pay to come to our conferences. Our bosses expect us to be trained and educated and know what we’re doing, so if people are paying, we need to give them their money’s worth. So whether it’s website improvements, higher quality speakers at our conferences, just changing our image a little bit, or just making us a little more well known, that’s our goal.”

Ms. Walka is impressed that GCCA is able to get nationally known speakers to talk at its conferences. “We had Truett Cathy from Chick-fil-A come speak to us one time,” she remembers, “and he was great. He told us that you can be trained to pretty much do anything, if you’ve got it up here between your ears, and he talked about how many times  you have to do something before it becomes habit. Just really, really good information even though it didn’t have anything to do with going in Monday morning and putting payroll in. That’s not what this organization is about.”

Mr. Butler and Ms. Walka want to help raise GCCA members to the highest level of professionalism possible.

“So  you lead by example,” Mr. Butler says. “If you have a standard, that filters down. I learned that a long time ago.”

“You expect a lot,” Ms. Walka says, “you get a lot.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Butler says, “and the best leaders are the ones that pick the right people to do the job and then leave them alone while they do it. They don’t meddle in their business – they trust them.”

He’s proud that GCCA emphasizes training for administrators through its relationship with Michigan State University, one of the few schools with a judicial administration program and offers 40-hour and 100-hour certificates, and the Institute for Court Management, probably the most respected training resource available, according to Mr. Butler. GCCA will launch its first training session this fall with ICM.

“Quite frankly, the whole idea is to give GCCA more validity and make the training something that judges and other county administrators would consider of value for their court administrators to be going to,” Ms. Walka said, “because it does take time away from the office and it’s hard for a lot of us to get out of the office for three or four days at a time. We want to build value in there for our members and give them some tools to use back in their own courts.”

That training centers around a set of core competencies emphasized by GCCA.

“Our core competencies are not yet by statute, but our leadership is moving in that direction,” Butler said, “and these are all the things that we strive to enhance, to improve, to make the system flow and work, to save counties money and give people their due process.”

GCCA training covers the core competencies established and adopted nationally by ICM and NACM (National Association for Court Management), including Court Performance Standards: CourTools; Caseflow Management; Managing Financial Resources; Human Resources; Managing IT Projects and IT Resources; Purposes and Responsibilities of the Courts; Court Community Communication; Education, Training and Development; Essential Components; Leadership; High Performance Courts; and Visioning and Strategic Planning.

Taking ownership

Mr. Butler also wants his tenure to be remembered as a time when the approximately 200 GCCA members became more involved in the organization.

“I want our members to take ownership,” he says. “It’s their council because long after I retire, the field of court administration will continue, this council will continue, and so you want to equip people to come in and take ownership of it and say, ‘I can do that,’ and then let them do it. We’ve seen a big turnaround in that – it’s not me, it’s them. I was just blessed enough to have good folks come on board.”

At each conference, members have reached out to the community where they are meeting, perhaps helping a local food bank or making a donation to a school. “We always partner with a group,” Butler said, “and our membership shows up and they’re just great about donating stuff.”

The most important point is to get members involved, he said.

“You hook ’em,” Mr. Butler said. “If you have a micromanager in my situation and he wants to do everything  himself,  people don’t feel like they’re needed and they don’t want to help. They’re like, ‘What’s the point?’ I’m bound and determined that we have a lot of talent and our members  have a lot to offer, so I want to pull that out of them. When you turn loose of the reins and let people buy in, good things happen.”

One example is a board member who has taken off with a mentorship program where more experienced and seasoned administrators and court leaders are paired with newcomers to the field.

“I tell people, with this mentorship program, you don’t have to know everything,” Mr. Butler said, “but you can pick up the phone and have an answer from anywhere in this state in a matter of minutes, as it relates to a court matter.”

Ms. Walka agrees.

“These are people who might not ordinarily get past the receptionist except that now they’re going to know who you are or what you’re all about when you call, so you’re going to get what you need, no matter how far up the food chain,” she said. “This just opens up so many avenues and so many things that I would not have sitting down there on that end of the courthouse all by myself in a vacuum. It really opens up information and lines of communication. It’s been invaluable to me.”

Butler’s term as president ends in September, so he’s been busy making the final preparations for activities at the fall conference.  He’s also looking toward spring and fall of 2016, picking out sites for those conferences because much advance planning is required. Even though the new president will actually work out the details for the conference, it’s Mr. Butler’s responsibility to do the early legwork and get a location booked before it’s too late.

Their ‘real’ bosses

Mr. Butler and Ms. Walka have been around long enough to know that all of their training boils down to doing the best job possible for their real bosses, the people of Whitfield County.

“In Juvenile Court, everyone is upset,” Ms. Walka says. “We take children out of their homes, severing relationships. It’s volatile and upsetting, but sometimes if you give people their day in court and let them be heard, they feel better about the outcome.

“And if you treat them with respect,” she says, “that’s important. They are our customers. They’re ours and we need to treat them with respect. I think a lot of that attitude comes from our GCCA conferences, too – to treat our constituency and people who come to court with the respect they deserve. That has to come from us down to our employees, too.”

Butler says Superior Court, on the other hand, usually tends to upset 50 percent of the people “because it doesn’t matter whether it’s a criminal offense, a divorce, or some property dispute, one side has to lose. If you can’t settle your problem and you bring it to the court, we’re going to make somebody mad because a decision has to be made.”

The bottom line, he says, is that “it’s the people’s courthouse, it’s the people’s courtroom. We’re here to serve them. We’re public servants.”

Serving – and learning - at GCCA can help them serve the people better, Mr. Butler and Ms. Walka believe.