In a recent Colorado Public Radio/Colorado Matters story, the Center for Out-of-Court Divorce was featured as a promising alternative to the traditional lengthy, expensive, and often contentious in-court divorce.

It has been my honor to participate in IAALS’ Quality Judges Initiative as a member of the O’Connor Advisory Committee. Much of my time serving as President of the American Bar Association in 2008-2009 was devoted to efforts to assure adequate funding for the judicial branch of government and to improve judicial selection in order to assure fair and impartial courts; service on Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s committee was a logical following step after my term as ABA President ended. As a member of the O’Connor Advisory Committee, I have seen firsthand how QJI brings focus to the national debate on judicial selection issues and challenges. We have members who give perspective to the issues from various diverse backgrounds in order to come up with workable recommendations on judicial selection and judicial performance evaluation.

Back in 2011, Utah implemented significant statewide changes to its rules of civil procedure governing disclosure and discovery, incorporating proportionality and presumptive discovery limits based on tiers. Once again Utah is on the leading edge, implementing a Civil Case Management Pilot Program that promotes increased judicial case management oversight.

On December 1, 2015, the long awaited amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect, including changes focused on cooperation...

Last week, IAALS held our annual Rebuilding Justice Award Dinner in celebration of our 10th Anniversary and the remarkable progress we've made as a national force for legal reform. Our work is not accomplished alone, which is why we honored both past awardees and current partners for their dedication and their innovation.

Ten years ago, few would have predicted that IAALS would have such an impact on the legal system. The world wasn’t exactly clamoring for another legal think tank, and aside from a few visionaries in Denver, no one foresaw the need for an organization dedicated to the improvement of the legal system rather than partisan advocacy. Yet ten years later, IAALS has succeeded not only in prompting a conversation about how cases get litigated but in touching off a broader reexamination of a number of assumptions about attorney control over litigation, discovery, and the relationship of the legal system to the people it serves.

In February, IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis gave the keynote address for the Denton Darrington Annual Lecture on Law and Government in Boise. Speaking on “Building the Just, Speedy, and Inexpensive Civil Courts of Tomorrow: Why We Cannot Afford to Fail,” Kourlis emphasized the importance of a robust and responsive civil justice system, and the need for reform.

IAALS is celebrating our 10th Anniversary, which means our 2015 Annual Report marks a milestone in our history. This report takes a look back at our past decade of accomplishments as well as gazes forward into the future. Hard copies also include a special, pull-out timeline—a tour de force that showcases how far we’ve come in advancing excellence in the American legal system.

As IAALS celebrates its tenth year, the Denver Business Journal sat down with Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis to recap her motivation for leaving the Colorado Supreme Court and founding IAALS, and the impacts made over the last decade.

This week, the Denver Post published an article highlighting Denver’s new Center for Out-of-Court Divorce, which provides a child-focused, less-adversarial, and potentially less-costly approach for families when parents are separating.

In 2012, when I first started researching Splitopia, my book on today’s good divorce, I assumed there were dearth of good ideas around for helping families transition out of marriage smoothly. It would be my job, I decided, to develop new thinking for the age-old problem of marriage’s end. Upon further investigation, I discovered that many legal professionals, reformers, and mental health practitioners did have good ideas for helping adults and children navigate this difficult transition, but they weren’t communicating them adequately between disciplines and across states, let alone to divorcing families. I would start a national divorce communication program, perhaps affiliating with a think tank in Washington, D.C.!

On April 21, IAALS—the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver—will hold its annual Rebuilding Justice Award Dinner. The award recognizes individuals who exemplify the spirit of innovation and leadership that IAALS champions across all of our work toward building a legal system that is fair, accessible, reliable, efficient, and accountable.