Photo courtesy of K.C. Hairston.
Magistrate Supervisor Heather Richards (second from the left) and Judge K.C. Hairston (fourth from the right) with the committee.
When in 2016 K.C. Hairston was appointed by Mountain Brook Mayor Terry Oden to serve as one of two judges for the city, he felt the need to join a national association for municipal courts to keep track of emerging issues and best practices for municipal courts.
As he was searching for a national association to join, however, he could not find one. Later that evening, Hairston created a website for what a national association might look like, and he named it the National Association of Municipal Courts. That website is still available today at NAMC.club.
Soon after these efforts were launched, municipal court employees from Mountain Brook, Birmingham and other cities across the country joined the NAMC startup team. After sharing this idea with staff from the National League of Cities, a grant was secured from the MacArthur Foundation to provide the funding for the initial planning meeting in Washington, D.C. Approximately six months from the initial Google search and the idea of creating the NAMC, the first “charter” meeting was held in Washington, D.C. on March 30-31.
The meeting attended by municipal court employees from Atlanta; Birmingham; Boulder, Colorado; College Station, Texas; Jackson, Mississippi; Mobile; New Orleans; San Antonio; Spokane, Washington; and of course Mountain Brook. Hairston and Mountain Brook’s Magistrate Supervisor Heather Richards attended on behalf of the city and now both serve on the NAMC’s Charter Committee.
As the NAMC develops, Hairston, Richards and the other staff from Mountain Brook’s municipal court plan to participate in the newly formed organization to better ensure that Mountain Brook’s municipal court stays informed of the latest issues and practices.
– Submitted by K.C. Hairston.
