IAALS, in partnership with the Denver Law Firm Coalition for Racial Equity, have published a report detailing best practices and recommendations to recruit, retain, and advance racially diverse attorneys. The report is the outcome of leaders across Denver’s legal community coming together to explore and identify sustainable, long-term DEI solutions, and the Coalition’s commitment to advance these shared goals across member firms.
Lawmakers in California recently spoke out against the state bar's exploration of regulatory reform as a means to address the access-to-justice crisis. However, the need for efficient and affordable legal services is growing exponentially—and data suggests that legal services innovation could a key part of the solution.
As America continues to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, some lawyers are noting an increase in divorce cases. Courts should be prepared to deal with these cases as quickly and efficiently as possible—and something that could aid their efforts is technology.
IAALS submitted this comment to the Oregon State Bar Board of Governors in support of the Proposed Oregon Legal Paraprofessional Licensing Program. The program would authorize paraprofessionals to provide limited legal services—without attorney supervision—in family law and landlord-tenant matters.
IAALS submitted this comment to the Michigan Supreme Court and the Lessons Learned Committee in response to the state’s preliminary report, Michigan Trial Courts: Lessons Learned from the Pandemic of 2020-21, Preliminary Findings, Best Practices, and Recommendations. The report highlights the common experiences that shaped the Michigan justice system throughout the pandemic.
Under many states’ current regulatory framework, a lawyer is the only option when it comes to addressing legal issues. Fortunately, however, a number of states are looking beyond lawyers—to limited licensed paraprofessionals, lay advocates, court navigators, and other types of allied legal professionals—in order to close the justice gap. And that number is growing.
The first two Paths to Justice convenings and webinars, focused on the pandemic, brought together diverse perspectives and partners to brainstorm lessons learned, identify continuing challenges, and inspire additional research. Out of those events, IAALS has published two issue papers highlighting outcomes and key takeaways.
In October, the Indiana Supreme Court published the Family Law Taskforce's final recommendations on how to make courts more efficient, less expensive, and easier to navigate in family law matters, with an emphasis in problem-solving, triage, training and stakeholder partnerships, and technology.
Throughout 2020, we saw just about every aspect of the legal profession move from in-person to virtual services. There have been a number of horror stories but also plenty of success stories, in which technology helped decrease court backlogs and increased access to the courts. So where does this leave us, and how do we move forward?
One of us is a law student. The other is a law professor. We’re both advocates for reforming legal education, particularly through expanded access to experiential learning opportunities. We're writing to highlight a model of experiential legal education—project-based learning—through a glimpse of Justice Lab, a course at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law.
From conversations with legal reformers in many states, the idea of establishing a regulatory sandbox seems extreme. The reality is, though, that these initiatives are not as aggressive as they might seem—and in fact, state courts have been using similar reform tools for a very long time.
Professor Anna Carpenter discusses her passion for access to justice, exciting developments in legal innovation, and what it means to receive the inaugural Alli Gerkman Legal Visionary Award.