Every day at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, a sizeable staff of administrative professionals including legal support assistants, clerks, receptionists, coordinators, evidence specialists, accounting and travel specialists, couriers, HR analysts, technicians, records specialists and more, work in support of the office to ensure that MCAO can fulfill its mission to serve the community and keep Maricopa County families safe.
This month, we celebrate the more than 500 administrative professionals at MCAO who play important roles in the criminal justice system – and now, during the COVID-19 crisis, are more critical than ever. April 22 is National Administrative Professionals Day and MCAO is proud to recognize these employees and their work. Our office wouldn’t be as efficient or organized without them and though their work is often behind-the-scenes, their valuable contributions don’t go unnoticed.
During COVID-19, MCAO’s administrative professional superstars are not only keeping up with their regular jobs as best they can, they are filling all kinds of gaps and assisting in sometimes unfamiliar ways. Downtown Legal Support Specialist Raquel Hekel is assisting with closeouts for several bureaus and is busy organizing court packets for the Southeast facility since their filing counter is closed. Legal Support Supervisor Jolie Panyon is busy organizing the Capital Litigation crew so they can work remotely on preparing discovery, sending Net Transcript requests, organizing trial notebooks and summarizing jail calls. Executive Receptionist Christina Sullivan is assisting the public records team with redacting while she continues to work every few days at the main reception desk downtown. Part of her new daily duties in the office now include distributing masks to attorneys and running between the discovery room and the main reception desk as she answers calls and signs for deliveries.
MCAO administrative professionals are crucial and their contributions to the office and the pursuit of criminal justice are tremendous. We thank them for their dedication and hard work today and every day.
