How one ICM Fellows project transformed a state's caseflow management system & a career

Kelly Hutton's research reshaped North Dakota's caseflow system and launched her path to national and international leadership.

The accidental court professional

Kelly Hutton didn't plan to work in court administration, let alone become North Dakota's next deputy state court administrator, NACM president, and a national caseflow management expert.

What began as a "gap year" job in a clerk's office in 2007 before law school became her career calling. Within three years, she was promoted to clerk supervisor and began her journey through NCSC's Institute for Court Management educational programs — Certified Court Manager (CCM), Certified Court Executive (CCE), and ICM Fellows.

On her CCM graduation day in 2015, Hutton was promoted to deputy court administrator. By 2016, she had completed her CCE certification and enrolled in the Fellows program, discovering her passion: caseflow management.

Reforming a statewide system

When Hutton began the Fellows program, North Dakota's reporting and tracking time-to-disposition standards from the early 1980s relied on paper-based processes that produced six-month-old data, causing cases to get lost in the shuffle.

Hutton's Fellows research project, "Caseflow in North Dakota: From Measurement to Management," detailed the problem and the process for improvement. Working with an appointed caseflow committee, she researched national best practices and applied NCSC Model Time Standards to recommend reforms to North Dakota's Administrative Rule 12, improving time standards for case disposition, case management expectations, and compliance responsibilities.

A key innovation resulted from this collaborative work: real-time caseload data dashboards.

The data dashboards show caseload information to clerks, administrators, and judges, providing real-time management of pending cases. 

"We now have dashboards that include the number of judges and how many cases they each have pending, how many cases they're writing decisions on, how many cases are on their desk," Hutton describes. "Instead of running multiple reports, I can see all that information at a glance."

The results were measurable: Some district courts cut overdue cases in half, and all were able to reduce this number significantly. Courts eliminated lost cases, and the dashboard evolved to include data quality management. As a result of these caseflow improvements, NCSC recognized North Dakota as one of the timeliest criminal court systems in the nation. 

Stepping into national leadership

Today, as president of the National Association for Court Management, Hutton brings her ICM training full circle. She helped edit NACM's most recent caseflow curriculum, regularly speaks at national conferences, and mentors the next generation of court leaders.

In December, Hutton represented NACM on the international stage at the International Association for Court Administration Conference in Dubai, sharing lessons from U.S. court administration and caseflow reform and demonstrating how applied research and performance management principles translate across justice systems.

Advice for everyone

Hutton's message echoes her own experience: geography and personality do not limit impact. "If little old me from North Dakota can do these things, you can, too," she said.

For court professionals considering the ICM Fellows path, her advice is direct: "There's never a good time," Hutton said. "If you think next year's going to be less busy, it's probably not, so you just have to dive in."