In April, over half of Wisconsin voters approved a proposed constitutional amendment that will allow the members of the state supreme court to select its chief justice, rather than the chief justice being determined by seniority.

Over the last eight years, our impacts have been felt across the country. A critical component of our success lies in our approach to tackling the challenging issues we face.

The National Center for Access to Justice (NCAJ) launched the Justice Index just over a year ago. This first-of-its-kind Index provides a spectrum of...

In the fall of 2013, IAALS and the National Judicial College co-hosted an educational summit exclusively tailored for state court judges on all facets...

The prestige of your law school is not all that counts when it comes to making partner at a big law firm. In a recent study of 33,000 lawyers at the...

This month, IAALS will hold its annual Rebuilding Justice Award Dinner and honor the members of the American College of Trial Lawyers Task Force on Discovery and Civil Justice. The Task Force began its work with IAALS in 2008, with goal of generating a nationwide discussion about the state of our civil justice system and promoting active consideration of proposed changes to make the system more accessible, affordable, efficient, and just.

The West Virginia legislature has passed, and the governor has signed, a bill that makes elections for the state's judges nonpartisan. Despite the new legislation, it is not possible to remove all traces of partisanship from judicial races. An additional consequence of the new law is that it effectively ends straight-ticket voting for judges.

The Texas Lawyer recently reported on Texas’ downward trend in civil lawsuits, which have dropped 17 percent over the last 10 years. The change in numbers presents many questions, with different perspectives as to the cause on all sides. Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht has said that the state’s judiciary must delve further into the statistics to find answers.

The Women's Legal Centre ACT (Australian Capital Territory), in the Australian capital of Canberra, has opened a divorce clinic for women from diverse cultural backgrounds. The clinic provides free legal advice and representation to women in troubled marriages who may encounter issues navigating the Australian legal system.

In a recent blog post, Richard Zorza shares some thoughts on improving services for self-represented litigants in the United States. He believes that the legal system needs an aspirational goal to address access to justice, which can ultimately move the system in the direction of meaningful change.

Mark your calendars! The 4th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference will take place October 1-3, 2015, in Denver, Colorado, and will center on our Foundations for Practice project. We will debut the results of our national study to participants and look to them to help us shape the lessons, recommendations, and next steps that will turn the results into action.

The Colorado Supreme Court has requested comments on proposed amendments to the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure. The changes are focused on improving access to the civil justice system by making pretrial case management more efficient, thereby decreasing cost and delay, without sacrificing justice. The proposals seek to take the best of Colorado’s Civil Access Pilot Project (CAPP) and implement them broadly for all civil cases across the state.