Expert Opinions

Last Tuesday’s Supreme Court argument was the latest chapter in the Court’s struggle to balance electoral candidates’ right to solicit campaign donations against the appearance or actual threat of corruption that arises when litigants or attorneys donate to a judge’s election campaign and later appear before that same judge in court. What all the Justices seemed to agree about—that electing state court judges poses great risk to the legitimacy of the states’ judiciaries—remains beyond their power to remedy.

ETL is about to release its first major report—a study of the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program. The report is not even public yet, but it was already highlighted in the Wall Street Journal and criticized at Above the Law. Ultimately, if law schools are going to develop programs that better prepare students and if prospective students are going to rely on those programs, then legal employers must value them. And, we're working on ways to help ensure that happens.

In 2014, we have continued to see a rise in the number of, and interest in, alternative processes designed to provide a more streamlined approach to the pretrial and trial process. While these programs are known by many different names, they all focus on increasing access to our civil justice system. Given the number of programs that have been implemented nationwide, and their diversity, we have updated our chart of these programs, which catalogs their unique elements.

In a historic 53.78%–46.22% decision, which is already beginning to transform the state's judiciary in significant ways, Nevada voters elected to create an Intermediate Court of Appeals during the November 2014 election cycle. Nevada has demonstrated that, with right mindedness and well-placed determination on behalf of achieving a high-functioning and efficient legal system, change and progress will eventually prevail.

Over the last seven years, we have focused much of our time and effort on ways to improve the effectiveness of discovery, due in large part to the expanding world of electronically stored information. In our new report, we review the laws in the United States and other countries and provide examples of, and analogies to, various cost allocation models. One of the key takeaways is the importance of proportionality.

One year ago, the Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families opened its doors at the University of Denver to serve families in metro area. Based on an interdisciplinary out-of-court model developed by the Honoring Families Initiative, the RCSDF is operating at full-force today, helping numerous parents transition in a positive and constructive manner that better serves them and their children.

We are pleased to announce the release of a new report on the judicial nominating commissions used to select supreme court justices in 30 states and Washington, D.C. With Choosing Judges, we examine why judicial nominating commissions are established in the first place, how their structure and operation differ across the nation, and what some of the best practices might be in building public trust in the process.

The Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families provides an amazing opportunity for graduate students to gain real world experience not only working with clients but working with other professionals. As a dual JD and MSW student, the Resource Center seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime, and was more valuable than I could have ever dreamed.

In recent years, I have been distressed to see persistent efforts in some states to politicize the bench and the role of our judges. Working closely with IAALS and its Quality Judges Initiative, we have collaborated to promote processes for selecting and retaining state judges that inspire public trust in our courts and the integrity of their decisions. Today, I am pleased to share with you the O’Connor Judicial Selection Plan—our recommendations for protecting and strengthening the courts.

A national conversation is ongoing about the future of our civil justice system, and research is being conducted on the litigation process by a number of individuals and organizations. To help make sense of the latest research and to bring it down to a manageable size, we have created a new report that synthesizes the relevant empirical research conducted by a variety of organizations and individuals.

Judicial independence is like freedom in that it is often taken for granted, and always at risk. Simply stated, judicial independence means that one branch of government is not subject to the will of the majority. That independent branch is charged with upholding the Constitution, even in the face of contrary majority will, and with protecting the rights of those not in power. What happens when judicial independence is threatened? We have a current all-too-disturbing example.

In the world of choosing law schools, we have generic rankings and recommendations—including US News & World Report, and a number of others that have popped up over the years—which can provide a certain value, but they hardly give the whole picture. Last year, we launched Law Jobs: By the Numbers, an employment calculator that allows you to review school employment numbers based on the criteria you care about most—and with the new 2013 ABA employment numbers, we've made some big upgrades.

As an interdisciplinary team, the students at the Resource Center provide services to families going through separation and divorce that they cannot get anywhere else. The comprehensive suite of services provided wouldn’t be possible for any one of us to offer singlehandedly. However, when we put our heads together, so to speak, we have the ability to help families go through the entire process, beginning to end, from all angles.

Another voice has joined a growing chorus calling for more openness in the selection and evaluation of Hawaii's state court judges. Critics of the lack of transparency make some valid points about the need to shine more light on these vital processes, particularly when we consider how other states address this issue.

For the second year in a row, the U.S. News and World Report's 2015 law school rankings have taken advantage of the rich employment data now made public by the American Bar Association. But as the Economist noted last week, the rankings have not yet made use of an interesting piece of data the ABA has published: whether student jobs reported by schools were funded by law schools.

Access to justice is by no means a new conversation in the United States, but it has been a frequent topic of conversation over the last few months. The issue took to the international stage last Thursday and Friday when the United Nations Human Rights Committee asked the U.S. to account for its growing civil justice gap, with two worrisome trends dominating the discussion.

Recently, Natalie Knowlton and I provided an update to the Colorado legal community on the Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families at the University of Denver—a model with national implications. The Resource Center was developed by the Honoring Families Initiative as an out-of-court alternative for families. I encourage readers to become familiar with our program and the impact we have had to-date.

HB 3380 would establish a judicial performance evaluation program for Oklahoma’s appellate and trial judges, and is remarkably similar to processes that already operate successfully in seven states where judges appear on the ballot, as they do in Oklahoma. The contemplated JPE program in Oklahoma is objective, broad-based, and apolitical, and an improvement on existing processes.

A recent survey asked respondents for their opinions on both court and non-court proceedings for divorcing couples. Overall, only 51 percent of those surveyed indicated they would consider non-court alternatives and only one-fourth believed that non-court proceedings protect parties’ rights. These findings suggest a lack of understanding about out-of-court solutions for families that are often less stressful and less expensive than lengthy in-court proceedings.

Jurors have a unique perspective on our legal system. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with someone who served on a jury this fall in California Superior Court. He had some suggestions as to how things could have been handled differently. We at IAALS hope judges and attorneys are listening. These techniques are already in use in many courtrooms across the country—but not all.