Rebecca Love Kourlis and Corina Gerety on CAPP's Progress Report

Law Week Colorado recently published an article covering IAALS' preliminary report on the Colorado Civil Access Pilot Project (CAPP). On April 7, IAALS published its first findings on the project from collected docket and survey data. The Law Week article features interviews with IAALS Executive Director and former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis and IAALS Director of Research Corina Gerety.

Gerety said that IAALS approached the evaluation by trying to get many different kinds of information from many different sources. And, so far, the data has shown mostly positive results. CAPP cases are more likely to resolve earlier than both the standard procedure and Rule 16.1, Colorado's simplified procedure for cases under $100,000. The preliminary evaluation also found that the time it takes to get a case in front of a judge is greatly reduced, and the number of filed and granted motions for extension is lower. Kourlis acknowledged that while some surveyed attorneys did express unhappiness with the rules in their specific cases, “[i]n general, even survey responses didn't point to things that undermine the docket data.”

All in all, both Gerety and Kourlis were pleased with the results, which set the stage for a final report on the project due to be published this fall. Between now and the end of the year, the Colorado Supreme Court Civil Rules Committee will determine the future of the CAPP rules. Gerety noted that “change is not easy for people, but it's easier if you have data showing the changes are beneficial.” Kourlis is excited about these next steps. “There's an enormous amount of interest around the country in this report. . . . It might have echoes around the country about rules and processes changes that reflect the successes."

Riley Combelic is a second-year law student at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and contributes to IAALS Online. Please direct inquiries about this post to iaals@du.edu.