2025 Impact Recap: Expanding Reach and Forging New Solutions

Years ago my friend and colleague Alli Gerkman gave me the book Lists of Note: An Eclectic Collection Deserving of a Wider Audience. It is a curated collection of historic lists from an eclectic group of people and worth adding to your library. It is a perfect gift for me, as I am a tried-and-true list maker. So often our lists are about the “to dos,” and the many things we want to accomplish in the future. I have looked forward to the fresh start of 2026 for many reasons, including that it is IAALS’ 20th anniversary year, but over the past month I have realized that there is equal value in creating a list that looks backward. As I have read cards from friends, family, and colleagues of all they have done in 2025, I have been reminded of the incredible accomplishments, hard work, and adventures of the last year. Looking at what we have accomplished opens our eyes to the incredible work that we have done—individually and collectively. I encourage you to read on for IAALS’ recap for 2025, as it is inspiring and provides direction as we enter 2026.    

In 2025, IAALS hosted dozens of meetings, gatherings, and convenings, attracting thought leaders and stakeholders from diverse sectors and industries to bring broad perspective to our work. We held convenings on the future of business disputes and unifying allied legal professional titles under one name. We held multiple webinar series focused on judicial innovation and wellness as well as exploring the potential of AI to deliver legal services. And our Lawyers Council met throughout the year to discuss business courts and alternative business structures. Through all these events, we connected experts and leaders to help build innovative solutions that address the most pressing challenges facing our justice system.

Our publications in 2025 reflect the breadth of our work across the system, as well as our collaboration with partners and individuals to drive system change:

• A Blueprint for Judicial Innovation: Takeaways from Advancing Innovation: A National Summit on Judicial Leadership (November 10, 2025)
• An Interim Evaluation of Utah's Legal Regulatory Sandbox
  • Part 1: Sandbox Background and Evaluation Design Overview (October 6, 2025)
  • Part 2: Process Evaluation (October 6, 2025)
  • Part 3: Outcomes Evaluation (November 20, 2025)
• Regulating AI in the Delivery of Consumer-Facing Legal Services (July 31, 2025)
• Building Bridges: Guidelines for Creating Reciprocity between Allied Legal Professional Programs (June 18, 2025)
• Recommendations for Modernizing Judicial Performance Evaluation (May 7, 2025)

We are always driving toward the future, and we developed projects that we are excited to see the results of in 2026:

• The Above the Line Network (ATLN), a joint project between IAALS and The Chicago Bar Foundation, launched the ATLN Hub, its own standalone website where people can connect, collaborate, and share valuable tools and resources to advance the goal of making legal services more affordable for the middle class.
• Foundations for Practice 2.0, a project in partnership with the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), has completed its survey of thousands of practicing lawyers in every field of law and every geographic and demographic sector to identify the key skills needed in today’s legal profession.
• The Uncomplicated Courts Initiative began its effort to redesign and simplify legal processes for high-stakes, high-volume cases to allow litigants, court staff, and judges to navigate cases in an efficient and straightforward manner.

Throughout the year, our team provided expertise and support to national partner committees, task forces, commissions, and working groups around the country. Their thought leadership was highlighted in national speaking engagements and published reports, but also in our recurring Expert Opinions series covering timely topics in the realm of civil justice reform.

• Danielle Kalil, Director of Civil Justice and the Judiciary, discussed the role judges have in innovating our justice system and the unique position they are in to implement meaningful change in “Visionary Leadership on the Bench: A Roadmap for Innovation in Our Courts.”
• Jessica Bednarz, Director of Legal Services and the Profession, discussed what we know about alternative business structures, what we still need to learn, and why continued exploration is critical to closing the access to justice gap in “Alternative Business Structures in the U.S.: What We Know and What We Still Need to Learn.”
• And I wrote about how the rule of law is under attack and how we can stand up to these threats in “When the Rule of Law Is Under Attack, We Must Stand Together.”

In 2025, we welcomed Scott Patton, Director of Development, and Megan Loeb, Assistant Director of Development, Foundations, and Sponsored Programs, to guide our development strategy and deepen our relationships with supporters and donors across the country. Philanthropic support is essential to advancing our mission of building a more accessible, fair, and efficient legal system, and we are excited to have them both onboard to drive that mission forward.

We are fortunate to have such an engaged and supportive Board of Advisors, and their expertise continues to guide and shape our future endeavors. We spent time together at our October board meeting envisioning the future in 2040 together—an exercise that helps keep us focused on what we want the world to look like and focused on what exactly we need to do to get there. It was a prelude to our Vision2040 Summit in October this year, and a reminder of the power that we hold when we work collectively to imagine that vision and chart a path to achieve it together.

This year we lost Daniel L. Ritchie, one of the founders of IAALS, Chancellor Emeritus of the University of Denver, and a businessman, philanthropist, rancher, and leader in the Denver community. Ritchie’s legacy will live on not only in the programs he made possible, but through the values he exemplified throughout his entire life—integrity, grit, determination, and motivation, among many others. IAALS is incredibly grateful for the vision and inspiration he brought both to IAALS’ founding and to its future, and we’re committed to championing the values he held dear in our work.

As we look back on 2025 and forward into our anniversary year, IAALS is intentionally holding two “lists of note” in our arms at once. One that reflects on what we have accomplished as an organization and the impact we have had, and another big, bold, audacious list for the future of IAALS and our justice system. We must be clear-eyed about the challenges we face, committed to creating a justice system that works for everyone, purposeful in our work to transform our justice system, energetic in these efforts, and unflinching in this moment. It is a list that is worthy of developing together, as it is too big to be accomplished alone, and we look forward to the opportunities the coming year holds for that collective work.