Vol. 39, Number 10 — October 2007

2007 AO Committee Award Recognizes Two

The 2007 award winners, Nick DiSabatino (photo left) and Allen Brown (photo right) with AO Committee chair Judge Roger L. Gregory (4th Cir.).

Allen Brown, Chief of the Policy and Strategic Initiatives Office, Office of Human Resources; and Nick DiSabatino, Chief of the Probation and Pretrial Services Technology Division, Office of Probation and Pretrial Services, are the recipients of the 2007 Leonidas Ralph Mecham Award for Exemplary Service to the Courts. The award recognizes individual Administrative Office staff for significant accomplishments that have improved court administration, internal controls, program effectiveness, communications, or efficiency in the courts or the AO.

Judge Roger L. Gregory, chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on the Administrative Office, presented the awards.

Brown was selected for his efforts in designing and coordinating the Court Compensation Study. The study examined compensation and classification policies for 27,200 employees across the court system, and involved nearly 600 judges and employees, along with the Court Compensation Study Working Group and the Judicial Resources Committee. This extensive effort has resulted in recommendations to the Judicial Conference that have the potential to achieve a cost savings of approximately $330 million between 2009 and 2017.

Judge W. Royal Furgeson, Chair of the Judicial Resources Committee, wrote that, without Brown’s leadership, “the study would not have been completed so timely nor would the resulting recommendations have been unanimously accepted by the Working Group.”

DiSabatino’s nomination for the 2007 award was endorsed by 86 chief pretrial services officers. Several wrote to say, “We would not be where we are as a system without his vision and leadership;” “He has guided extraordinary advances in the Judiciary’s automation programs”; and “The IT infrastructure improved almost overnight after Nick was appointed.”

DiSabatino was instrumental in the enhancement of the national Probation/Pretrial Services Automated Case Tracking System (PACTS), which has saved the courts hundreds of thousands of dollars in operating and maintenance costs by warehousing data in one location. He also improved communication by establishing an Information Technology Working Group, which brings together probation and pretrial services officers from around the country to develop innovative strategies to accomplish the work of the probation and pretrial services offices.