Four years ago, Professor Andrew Schepard and his colleagues at Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University developed a family law class that would strike a balance between doctrine and skills development. This week, we added it to our growing collection of innovative law school courses. In a recent interview, Professor Schepard discussed the course, which he has taught the last three years.

A local chapter of the League of Women Voters hosted a forum on diversity in state courts as part of a national campaign to promote impartial courts and judicial diversity. The League made several recommendations for enhancing diversity among the state’s judges, most of whom are elected by the legislature after being vetted by a commission composed of legislators and members of the public.

In the wake of the defeat of three justices in the November 2010 retention elections, members of the Iowa Supreme Court have been more active in outreach efforts to educate the public about the role of the courts. One justice will stand for retention in 2012, and a challenge is anticipated.

A supreme (trial) court administrative judge issued a written reprimand to candidates for four open seats in his district, citing a number of complaints about their campaign activities. The candidates had been provided with a copy of a judicial campaign ethics handbook and required to attend an educational program on the ethical boundaries of campaign conduct.

Chief Justice Paul De Muniz announced that he will retire from the supreme court in January 2013. De Muniz’s announcement came well in advance so that prospective candidates for his seat could prepare for the 2012 election.

Annita M. Menogan is currently responsible for oversight of all legal matters for Red Robin, including compliance and corporate governance, and is a member of the Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Advisory Committee. She recently sat down with us to talk about the future for law students and new law graduates in the profession. In her Voices from the Field interview, Menogan raises several issues about the current state of legal education, and some possible solutions.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich promised to “restore the proper role of the judicial branch.” Among his proposals in this regard are ignoring federal court decisions with which he disagrees and subpoenaing federal judges to seek explanations for their decisions.

In a recent presentation, Professor Daniel Martin Katz of Michigan State University College of Law promoted a new law school model that, among other things, blends practice skills with doctrine and favors students with undergraduate majors in science and engineering.

Senator Barbara Boxer continues to push the American Bar Association to require law schools to produce accurate job statistics and called the ABA's...

When we discuss legal education reform, some of the more jaded members of our community often ask, “Why is this time any different?” They rattle off a list of dust-covered reports about proposed reforms for legal education, often dating back several decades, and wonder how we can be optimistic about the prospects for meaningful reform now. The answer is that we are in the midst of a perfect storm; one in which several powerful forces are driving law schools toward reform.

As described in an earlier post, Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers initiated a unique, far-reaching survey of 210 U.S. and Canadian law schools. Now completed, the survey has a 58% response rate. Before presenting the findings in a series of future posts, we face a key prior task – describing the responding schools and seeing how closely they resemble all schools and the non-responding schools.

Supreme court justice Michael Eakin, who is standing for retention in November, has so far raised $427,000 to keep his seat. Even though the race is uncontested, his campaign may be preparing for a last-minute attack. (Pennsylvania judges are first chosen in partisan elections and stand for retention for subsequent terms. Judicial elections are held in off years in conjunction with municipal elections.)