IACA President Pamela Harris' remarks to the NACM membershipJacksonville, Florida15 July 2026 First, I’d like to thank the NACM Board for this invitation to address you as it is a privilege to stand before you again — this time under a theme that speaks directly to the moment we are all in: Preserving the Rule of Law in the Age of Rapid Change. Last year, I spoke to you about connection – about how IACA and NACM link court professionals across states, across borders -- to learn from each other. This year, I want to talk about what those connections allow us to become: an anchor – an anchor for the rule of law. Because in times of rapid change, the rule of law does not preserve itself. It depends on people like you who anchor it through your leadership, your integrity, and your daily commitment to justice keeping that anchor firmly set. So rather than treat change as something to merely survive, I want to pause on why NACM and IACA are the right two organizations to be having this conversation together now. NACM's mission is to strengthen court administration here in the United States — to equip the people who run our courts with the knowledge, standards, and the community they need to deliver justice fairly and effectively at the national level. IACA's mission is to extend the same idea to the world — to strengthen professional court administration and the rule of law globally, through cooperation, education, and the sharing of what works in judicial systems. Looking closely at our two missions, you will see they are not separate goals that happen to overlap. We have similar missions, on two different scales and most importantly -- we are learning from each other. Whether I am speaking with Chief judges, court managers, or a Minister of Justice in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Caribbean, or Oceania -- we are all asking remarkably similar questions: How do we preserve judicial independence?How do we maintain public confidence? How do we protect our courts from cyber threats? How do we embrace artificial intelligence without compromising fairness and integrity? How do we ensure access to justice in increasingly divided societies? How can we secure sufficient funding; and How do we preserve the Rule of Law? These questions transcend ALL borders. And these questions are the defining questions of our profession today. AI, cybersecurity, and social change are simply the latest test of whether we protect those things or let them slip. And because NACM and IACA share an underlying purpose, we do not have to face that test separately — every innovation discovery from our members, our sponsors or exhibitors becomes something our entire networks can use. As we all know – AI is now an operational reality in our courts in some form or another. Used well, AI is one of the most promising access-to-justice developments in our lifetime. Indeed, certain AI tools are worthwhile, yet how will we establish ethical boundaries and preserve the rule of law by moving forward using these tools? Change -- sometimes massive change -- has always been in the forefront over our 250 years. US history reminds us that the Rule of Law has never depended upon stability. The Rule of Law has: Survived wars. Its survival is not because our institutions are immune to change, it is because principled people have been willing to uphold its enduring values and have remained faithful to the principled ideologies behind it. And that is where each of you come in. You are the professionals who transform constitutional principles into everyday reality that permits justice to function in a manner that allows the public to trust the process and our institutions. You are a remarkable amalgamation of individuals making the rule of law possible. The rule of law is not and will never be “one and done.” It must be renewed every single day by people like you, all over the country – all over the world. You see, change is not the enemy of the rule of law, it is, more often than not, the occasion for the rule of law to prove itself. I will close with this. Every time IACA connects with NACM and every time court employees and judges connect and learn something new at a NACM conference here in the US or an IACA conference abroad, the rule of law gets a little steadier, a little stronger, a little more prepared for whatever is coming next. On behalf of IACA, thank you for being the anchor for such an important service, and thank you for giving me every reason to believe the future of our courts is a bright one. For further discussion of this topic, please join Kevin Bowling and me for a Fireside chat on The Global ROLE of Court Administration in Supporting the Rule of Law at 10:30. Thank you for your service. Pamela Harris, President International Journal for Court Administration
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