The Fall 2011 edition of Transparent Courthouse® Quarterly is now available. Transparent Courthouse® Quarterly is a quarterly newsletter reporting...

This article from the Colorado Lawyer discusses the 2011 conference on evaluating appellate judges and its outcomes. In 2010, a number of states saw...

The November 2011 edition of Selection Snapshots is now available.

The judicial nominating commission released 40 years of data on those who have been recommended and appointed to the D.C. superior court and court of appeals. The commission’s process has become increasingly transparent in recent years, beginning with the release of the names of all judicial applicants in 2008.

There are fourteen trial court seats up for election in Manhattan, but candidates are all running unopposed. The five supreme court candidates were nominated at a party convention. Of the nine civil court candidates, only one faced an opponent in the primary.

According to a report on campaign spending in state supreme court elections in 2009-10, special interest groups accounted for 30% of the money spent and paid for three out of four attack advertisements. The $4.9 million spent on judicial retention elections more than doubled the $2.2 million spent in such races during the entire decade.

Christie campaigned for Republican state legislators, who are up for reelection in November, on the issue of “elitist judges.” Christie plans to propose a constitutional amendment to bypass the ruling.

A joint legislative committee considered changing the process for selecting the state’s appellate judges. The primary proposal is to put party labels for judicial candidates back on the ballot, in order to enhance voter information.

President Obama’s efforts to fill judicial vacancies have been complicated by the American Bar Association’s ratings of potential nominees. The ABA’s judicial vetting committee has rated 14 of 185 potential nominees as “not qualified,” and the administration has a policy of not nominating such candidates.

According to a new report, Michigan had the most expensive judicial races in 2009-10, accounting for one fourth of the $38.4 million spent nationwide. The state also saw the highest spending on TV advertisements and the most attack ads.

Dean Larry Kramer of Stanford writes that law schools don't necessarily teach the way they did 20 or 30 years ago. Many, he claims, have evolved to...

In October 2011, IAALS recognized three federal judges as the 2011 recipients of the Fifth Annual Transparent Courthouse® Award: the Honorable Mark R. Kravitz, the Honorable Lee H. Rosenthal, and the Honorable John G. Koeltl.