Director, State Courts Partnership
BA, 1977, University of Central Arkansas; JD, 1980, University of Arkansas; LL.M., 1982, University of Bristol (UK)
Room 403 | Phone: 501-916-5418 | Email
J.D. Gingerich arrived at the Bowen Law School in 2017 to serve as the founding Director of the State Courts Partnership, a collaboration between Bowen and the National Center for State Courts (NCSC). The NCSC is an independent, nonprofit court improvement organization founded at the urging of then-US Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger to serve as a clearinghouse for research, information and consulting assistance to support the improvement of judicial administration in the state courts. Through a merger with the Institute for Court Management, the NCSC added an education focus with a curriculum especially designed for court leaders and managers. In the early 1990s an international division was formed to offer a similar array of research, consulting, education and information services to strengthen the rule of law in countries around the world.
Gingerich served for twenty-eight years as the Director of the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts, serving during the terms of seven Chief Justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court. He is a Past-President of the US Conference of State Court Administrators and served as a member of the Board of Directors of the NCSC. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Arkansas Crime Information Center, the Arkansas IOLTA Foundation, the Arkansas Access to Justice Foundation, the Arkansas Specialty Courts Commission and the Governor’s Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
From 1980 – 1988 he was employed as University Legal Counsel, Assistant to the President and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Central Arkansas.
He is a frequent presenter at judicial and court administration conferences, a member of the faculty of the Institute for Court Management, and publishes on a variety of topics on court administration, judicial elections, court funding and access to justice. He has served as a volunteer consultant for court improvement projects in Kosovo, Haiti and Indonesia.
