News & Updates

IAALS has elevated the role of empirical research in legal system reform and demonstrated how data and evaluation are the bedrock for effective solutions.

Utah's legal regulatory sandbox was designed to open the door to new kinds of legal service providers and business structures, including entities with nonlawyer ownership and nonlawyer practitioners, who could offer legal services to the public. IAALS has now completed our interim evaluation, with findings published across a four-part report series covering background, process evaluation, outcomes evaluation, and social return on investment analysis.

The ABA Journal recently highlighted the significance of Foundations 2.0 and its potential to reshape how we define and assess lawyer readiness. Our survey is now live, and we’re inviting lawyers across the country to weigh in.

As the legal profession undergoes a renaissance, proactive data collection is crucial. Here, we provide a strategic approach—defining objectives, ensuring data quality, and fostering a culture of learning—to enhance evidence-based decision-making, promote accountability, and achieve program success.

The Utah Bar Admissions Working Group has proposed an inventive attorney licensure path rooted in IAALS' Building a Better Bar research. It addresses traditional bar exam shortcomings by prioritizing competence, diversity, and access to justice through five requirements for admission and continuous assessment.

In 2020, IAALS published its groundbreaking report on the 12 building blocks of minimum competence to be a lawyer, our 5 insights for assessment, and our 10 recommendations for better legal licensing. Here, we cover the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth building blocks of minimum competence.

In 2020, IAALS published its groundbreaking report on the 12 building blocks of minimum competence to be a lawyer, our 5 insights for assessment, and our 10 recommendations for better legal licensing. Here, we cover the seventh, eighth, and ninth building blocks of minimum competence.

The ABA has proposed a resolution encouraging law firms to take a more comprehensive approach when recruiting law students, considering foundational skills alongside more traditional factors—echoing the research and recommendations in IAALS' Foundations for Practice project.

The Supreme Court’s recent affirmative action ruling will undoubtedly impact law school admissions and legal hiring. Now, more than ever, efforts to improve equity and inclusion are crucial for creating a more diverse legal profession.

In November, several law schools made the decision to withdraw from the U.S. News & World Report rankings, reigniting conversation about the publication’s role in perpetuating inequality in legal education.

Our final two Paths to Justice events, focused on racial justice, brought together diverse perspectives and partners to engage in a dialogue around inequities in our civil justice system and how it relates to public trust and confidence. IAALS has published two issue papers highlighting outcomes and key takeaways for the paths forward.

Despite trepidation from some in the legal community around the idea of nonlawyers providing legal services, newly released data from Utah's sandbox proves those fears unfounded—and that, in fact, the opposite is true. Sandbox providers are bringing a variety of safe legal services to thousands of consumers.

Our data from the US Justice Needs project draws from more than 10,000 surveyed individuals and illuminates the contours of the justice crisis in America—revealing that, while certain groups are disproportionately impacted by justice issues, no socio-demographic group is untouched.

The goal of any licensure process should be to make sure the public is protected from incompetence without serving as an artificial barrier to people entering the legal profession. Indeed, this is precisely what the bar exam purports to do. But does the bar exam actually do those things?

In October 2020, IAALS published its groundbreaking report on the 12 building blocks of minimum competence to be a lawyer, our 5 insights for assessment, and our 10 recommendations for better legal licensing—with the goal of improving the bar exam and the overall licensing process. Here, we cover the fourth, fifth, and sixth building blocks of minimum competence.

In October 2020, IAALS published its groundbreaking report on the 12 building blocks of minimum competence to be a lawyer, our 5 insights for assessment, and our 10 recommendations for better legal licensing—with the goal of improving the bar exam and the overall licensing process. Here, we cover the first three building blocks of minimum competence.

The pandemic’s disruption to the status quo brought with it a critical view of the bar exam, how it is administered, and whether it actually tests what it purports to. The status quo—and tinkering around its edges—is not good enough. It is time we had the courage and will to look beyond the assumptions that underpin the current bar exam and towards outcomes and purpose for a new era.

Throughout the past ten months, our justice system has made giant strides in its use of technology, including video- and tele-conferencing, e-filing, remote jury trials, and online dispute resolution. The question now faced by many courts is: are these digital processes working like they’re supposed to?

In a groundbreaking report, IAALS, in partnership with Professor Deborah Merritt at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, has defined the minimum competence that new lawyers need to be qualified to practice law—and provides recommendations for how legal licensing processes like the bar exam must change to be more fair to bar applicants and to better protect the public.

After COVID-19 and the social unrest around racial equity, our world will never be the same. We have a duty to ensure that we learn from this season of change and to use the knowledge we have gained to create a better world. To do so, we must be guided by data and evidence—and we must improve our data and research practices.