he Quality Judges Initiative at IAALS, along with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and other members of our advisory committee, has been reaching out to governors of these states to urge them to use nominating commissions when filling court openings that occur between scheduled elections. These vacancy nominating commissions invite applications for open positions, screen and interview the candidates who apply, and recommend a short list of the best qualified to the governor for appointment.

Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Director Alli Gerkman was invited to speak on “The Changing Legal Landscape” at the opening plenary session for the...

On August 20 and 21, the multidisciplinary Honoring Families Initiative (HFI) Advisory Committee convened in Denver. The meeting agenda included in-depth discussion of preliminary data collected over the last several months as part of the HFI Cases Without Counsel (CWC) project.

The National Self-Represented Litigants Project (NSRLP) in Canada continues to build upon the important initial research conducted by Dr. Julie...

On the occasion of his retirement, John Lande, now Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law and ETL Fellow, collected his advice to law students and lawyers in an essay entitled “My Last Lecture: More Unsolicited Advice for Future and Current Lawyers.”

As of July 1, 2015, Colorado has adopted new amendments to its rules of civil procedure with the goal of achieving a more accessible and efficient road to justice. The amended rules seek to increase the involvement of judges in pretrial activity, limit discovery to what is needed to prove a case, and increase a judge’s ability to award sanctions for noncompliance with the rules.

Washington's inaugural class of limited license legal technicians (LLLTs) have taken their initial test to become the first of their kind. Seven of...

The Duke Law Center for Judicial Studies has issued a call for public comment on its Guidelines and Suggested Practices for Implementing the 2015...

A robust discussion continues in the United States about the need to improve the delivery of legal services. During the American Bar Association’s...

Can the 20th Century model of legal services delivery rise to the challenges and opportunities created by changes in society and the legal industry...

Family court is often the only experience that people will have with the judicial process, through divorce, separation, and parental responsibility...

In a recent NCSC article, Innovative Courts Encourage Dissent, Judge Kevin Burke of Hennepin County, Minnesota, discussed the benefits of fostering the right forms of dissent in the courthouse. Judge Burke, a member of the IAALS Board of Advisors, acknowledged that "embracing dissent in a courthouse is not easy."