IAALS warmly welcomes and honors the founding members of its newly formed Law Firm Council. The LFC was formed in 2013 to provide a group of national firms who are invested intellectually and financially in IAALS’ mission with an opportunity to have a voice in our work. LFC members are an essential resource to IAALS as we seek to identify issues within the American legal system and forge practical solutions to them.

IAALS announces a first-of-its-kind national project to examine the growing trend of American families who represent themselves in family court. The project will include a study of self-represented litigants to discover how family courts can help them navigate the justice system to achieve fair outcomes. Study results will be used to develop recommendations for ways that state courts can meet the needs of those without an attorney.

The Colorado Supreme Court has rejected a proposed initiative intended for the November 2014 ballot that would amend the state constitution to allow voter recall of judges. Two other proposed ballot initiatives aimed at courts and judges are still alive. Eight states currently allow voters to recall judges.

David Thomson, an Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Fellow, has written two hybrid law school textbooks, which include both print and online components. In two recent blog posts, Professor Thomson wrote about his motivations for writing the textbooks and the results he has had using them in his classrooms.

Recent national media coverage paints a highly positive picture of the current pace of federal judicial nominations and confirmations. After all, 2014 has seen 50 confirmations so far, compared to 43 in all of 2013 and 48 in 2012. Not so fast, says Russell Wheeler, an IAALS Board Member and Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. The outlook has improved, but according to Wheeler, a case can be made for a more cautious assessment.

Developed as part of the “Informed Voters – Fair Judges” project, a voter education effort led by the National Association of Women Judges, a short film featuring retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has received an Emmy Award in the Public Service Announcement category from the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

On June 5, Alli Gerkman, Director of Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers, appeared on Colorado Public Radio to talk about efforts being made on a national scale to change legal education and how Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers is leading the way. During the interview, Gerkman discusses the need to bridge the gap between law schools and the profession and the opportunity to forge a better path forward.

This issue has created something of a "two-tier system" in which the haves--those with representation--and the have nots--those without--can expect substantially different results in family court cases. This inequality is something that most people would agree is just part of the legal system. But in family court cases it is often the children, not the litigants, who suffer from the inequality.

A federal judge has upheld the unusual system that Ohio uses to elect its judges, which features partisan primary elections and a nonpartisan general election. The challenge to the Ohio system was first filed in 2010 by the Ohio Democratic Party, three judicial candidates, and a public employees union, who claimed that not allowing judicial candidates to run with party labels violated their First Amendment rights.

Anyone would be hard-pressed to find a prospective law student who has not obsessed over law school rankings like US News and World Report. In fact, it is likely that many prospective students use rankings as one of the heaviest weighted factors in making their decisions about which school to attend. But should they? Local and regional economies and students' personal connections to a community are two factors that are just as important.

San Diego's "one-day divorce" pilot project, founded in March 2014, has already seen successes in its first few months. The program, implemented by the San Diego Superior Court, allows couples who meet its requirements to complete a simple divorce in just one day. The success of the program to-date has made some wonder whether it will spread to other jurisdictions.

Rocket Lawyer, founded in 2008, is an alternative, online legal service provider that many see as a first wave in a tidal shift in how legal services are delivered to the public. They recently published an article on their blog that spoke to the uncertain and shifting state of legal education, and the profession as a whole, and some of the efforts that are being made to spearhead the best way forward, including those being made by Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers.