For separating and divorcing families, access to justice can be hard to come by. Our traditional, court-driven model de-emphasizes parents’ (and children’s) long-term interests, fosters expensive legal fees, and lacks important services that can help families reorganize in a well-rounded way. But, in a recent article for the ABA’s Dispute Resolution Magazine, Denver’s pioneering Center for Out-of-Court Divorce (COCD) is discussed as a bright new future for the process—one that centers on problem solving and holistic outcomes.

IAALS’ Honoring Families Initiative recently released two new reports focused on the experiences of self-represented litigants in our family court system: Cases Without Counsel: Research on Experiences of Self-Representation in U.S. Family Court and Cases Without Counsel: Our Recommendations after Listening to the Litigants.

A recent study by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) is shedding new light on the demographics of state judiciaries across the country. The Gavel Gap project collected data based on the race, ethnicity, and gender of 10,000 sitting state court judges, and then analyzed how closely each state’s bench reflects its population.

One of the reasons that the American experiment succeeded was the genius of our Founding Fathers in establishing a three-part system of government with an independent judiciary. Without an independent judiciary, we have just one more political entity, subject to the control of the majority, untethered from the Rule of Law, and susceptible to bullying.

Today, IAALS released a new report that finds family law attorneys, as stewards of the justice system, are uniquely positioned to best drive much needed change within the system. The Family Law Bar: Stewards of the System, Leaders of Change provides a blueprint for attorneys to help lead change in the system for their clients. It resulted from a groundbreaking summit that united a diverse group of national leaders around the shared goal of identifying obstacles and finding solutions that reshape the divorce and separation process so it better serves the needs of children and families.

Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Fern Fisher of the New York City Courts recently addressed the Colorado Supreme Court Advisory Committee and its Limited License Legal Technician (LLLTs) Subcommittee.

Deans of law schools throughout the nation are faced with unprecedented challenges in legal education: significant restructuring in the legal employment market, high student debt loads, dramatic declines in applicants for admission, rapid technological advances, students who learn in new ways, shifting accreditation standards, national ranking systems, and concerns from the bench and bar about the preparedness of new lawyers. Against this background, it is so critical that deans have a forum to interact with each other, practitioners, judges, a variety of legal employers, and the many parties interested in and committed to the future of legal education.

The Journal of Experiential Learning at Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center (an ETL Consortium school) is looking for papers for the Fall/Winter 2016 volume. The topic is “Loosening the Walls of the Legal Academy: The Bench and the Bar as Legal Educators.”

Lawyers reach out to me from time to time to give me a dose of reality. Recently, a trial lawyer spoke to me of a few cases that had gone awry—and are examples of larger issues that plague our civil justice system. She did not give names, or case numbers, or jurisdiction, so if any of you reading this recognize yourselves, be assured that I do not.

This November, five of the seven justices on the Kansas Supreme Court are standing for retention, and many court watchers in Kansas and around the country are anticipating a no-holds-barred election battle. The supreme court on one side and the governor and legislature on the other have been at odds for the last several years over court decisions involving school funding and capital punishment.

Today, IAALS unveiled two new reports—one of which captures the experiences of litigants navigating U.S. family courts without attorneys, and the other makes recommendations for courts and others to help better serve these litigants. There is broad consensus that, in some courts, upwards of 80–90% of family cases involve at least one self-represented party. In many instances, when parties are not represented, difficulties arise for litigants and courts alike. Cases Without Counsel highlights a very real justice gap and gives urgency to the challenge of creating client-centric family law courts and processes.

IAALS is proud to announce Joanne C. Slotnik, Former Executive Director of the Utah Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission, as the inaugural recipient of our Quality Judges Award in recognition of her contributions to preserving judicial accountability and impartiality. Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, also Honorary Chair of IAALS’ O’Connor Advisory Committee to the Quality Judges Initiative, was on hand last night for the Phoenix event and award presentation.