Legal Aid Ontario, which promotes access to justice for low-income individuals, recently created programs that provide services to couples wishing to divorce as long as one individual makes less than $18,000 and the other does not make more than $50,000. If couples qualify, the program provides "a whole different avenue that people can now access to resolve their family law problems."

Recent events in Arkansas have prompted some state leaders to call for an end to electing judges, in favor of commission-based gubernatorial appointment.

Professor Ann C. Hodges, University of Richmond Law School, has published an article on Using Experiential Education to Develop Human Resources for the Nonprofit Community: A Course Study Analysis. The paper analyzes a course in Nonprofit Organizations that incorporates a community-based project, and can serve as a resource for other professors interested in implementing experiential education models.

As reported previously, the cuts to legal aid in England have had a serious impact on the public’s ability to access the legal system and obtain representation. A recent article describes additional consequences stemming from the 2012 cuts. A survey of barristers indicated that 69% of respondents who worked as family legal aid practitioners reported a decline in fee income.

Many advocates for legal education reform state that the traditional Socratic lecture model in law schools must be supplemented by experiential learning. Professor Kathleen Elliott Vinson of Suffolk University Law School, an Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Consortium school, recently published a paper advocating for experiential learning through a curriculum that emphasizes problem-solving.

Law Week Colorado recently published an article highlighting the Honoring Families Initiative model for out-of-court resolution of divorce and separation, and custody matters, which is currently being piloted at the University of Denver. Thus far, the Resource Center has provided services to over 80 families, including 55 mediations and 18 final orders hearings.

This week, IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis penned an article for the ABA Journal’s The New Normal, which focuses on how the litigation process is being remade. Kourlis walks down the road that reforms in the civil justice system have taken so far, in an effort to make the civil justice system more accessible, less costly, less time-consuming, and more responsive to the needs of the public.

In an age where much of the evidence presented in American courtrooms is never printed or available in a paper format, it is essential that judges understand the unique challenges that electronically stored information creates, both for litigants and the court. In June 2014, IAALS and the NJC co-hosting Fundamentals of E-Discovery for State Court Judges, a free webcast that judges can still access for CLE credit.

A recently published a paper, entitled “A Primer on Professionalism for Doctrinal Professors,” discusses how and why doctrinal professors should incorporate attorney professionalism into their curriculum. Professor Schaefer offers guidance in developing course outcomes that connect legal subject matter with issues of professionalism and methods for doing so.

With Tennessee's August 7 judicial retention elections just over two weeks away, the TV ad war is escalating. According to the latest figures, the Tennessee Forum has spent nearly $120,000 on an anti-retention TV ad, while campaigns supporting the justices' retention have spent just over $200,000 on television advertising.

A recent study has found that heavy use of social networking sites is “a positive, significant predictor of divorce rate and spousal troubles” in the United States. The apparent association between the use of social networking sites and divorce and marital unhappiness raises questions not only about how such tools are used, but how their use affects marriage.

The Center for Families, Children and the Courts recently released a report stemming from the Families Matter Symposium, which focused on this question: how do we radically transform a family court system from one that disrupts and tears apart families to one that helps heal them? The report details the suggestions that emerged from the Symposium.