News & Updates

Greg and I have known one another for over thirty years. He was a new associate at Gibson Dunn during a period in my career when I was working with Gibson Dunn, primarily on water and oil and gas matters. Back then, Greg was green, and I was just a little less so. But, we overlapped for only a short time. I next encountered Greg primarily through his mother, who lived at the time in our neighborhood and rode her bike everywhere. We would see one another at the grocery store or on the street, and she would tell me about Greg’s career and about her other children as well. The Kerwin family is an extraordinary family.

Walter is a man of many accomplishments, many firsts, many awards—none of which he ever mentions. Just to give a "flavor" (notice the food theme throughout) of some of them: graduation from high school at 16; first African American to become Student Body Vice President at the University of Denver; first African American to work for Tenneco Oil’s legal department and for Texas Instruments in Dallas, first to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas, first to head up the Environmental Protection Agency in Dallas; deputy Federal Highway Administrator in the Clinton administration and manager of Walmart’s Legal Department diversity initiatives. He has opened doors, opened minds, and led an extraordinarily distinguished career, including being President of the National Bar Association.

We are proud to present you with IAALS' 2017 Annual Report, showcasing our efforts to help create a legal system that works for everyone. The theme this year is “Action to Justice.” Throughout the report, you will see images that are straight out of the comics. But despite the whimsical tone, the real message is that we live in times that pose great challenges to our system of justice, and superheroes must answer the call to act.

The Advisory Committee of the Honoring Families Initiative here at IAALS met last month. The Committee, chaired by Bill Howe, a domestic relations practitioner from Oregon, is a group of multi-disciplinary, extremely experienced and skilled people—who care a great deal about families in the courts. They have been with IAALS since the onset of the HFI work, and they continue to be our secret weapon.

Illinois takes judicial education seriously. In 2015, the state Supreme Court formed the Illinois Judicial College, and very recently I was honored to participate in its first full-week debut of courses. Over 400 judges participated and there were over 100 course offerings for them. At the initial plenary session, there was energy in the room—colleagues enjoying being together, eager to learn new things and share information.

Mary McQueen is a leader and a visionary. Mary and I first met many, many years ago—when she was the State Court Administrator in Washington and I was on the Colorado Supreme Court. By the time I started IAALS, she had become the President of the National Center for State Courts. She was one of the first people I reached out to, because I saw so many natural partnerships that we could forge between IAALS and the National Center—and indeed we have.

Dan Ritchie has had a profound influence on IAALS. The idea of IAALS was born in his office one day in 2005 when he said to me, "Is there a think tank for the legal system somewhere—a think tank that would be collaborative and action-oriented? Does such a thing exist? No? Well, why don’t we start one. Why don’t you reach out to John Moye and see if he would be interested, too." Then, Dan raised the money, positioned IAALS for maximum impact, and helped me to pull together an initial team. And he has stuck with us, helping us shape our mission and our projects at every turn.

Diane and I have known each other since grade school. From those early days, she was a phenomenal athlete, a brilliant scholar, and a bit of a daredevil. She played field hockey, rode horses, skied competitively, attended Stanford undergrad and business school, traveled the world, and became a jet pilot. On that list along the way she added becoming an extraordinarily skilled business woman. In addition to being colleagues, we are friends. We have climbed Kilimanjaro together, ridden horses, walked ranches, and biked Italy. My husband, Tom, and I also knew her Dad, Charlie Gates. He was the one to recognize the need for and possible promise of IAALS. And then Diane carried his intention forward, and made it her own.

On the very day when the Colorado Supreme Court Justices convened for an annual holiday luncheon, which includes all former Justices, a new Justice was added to the Court. Former Chief Justices Bender and Mullarkey, former Justices Kirschbaum, Dubofsky, Hobbs, Martinez, Eid, and yours truly; and sitting Chief Justice Rice and Justices Hood, Boatright, Coats, Marquez, and Gabriel all met to share some holiday cheer and some Court administrative updates. The tradition has been ongoing since before I joined the Court—and it is a wonderful one. We all get a chance to catch up, and to feel part of an institution that is profound and meaningful.

John Moye is one of a kind: brilliant and indomitable. IAALS itself was the result of alchemy—a coalition between John, Dan Ritchie, Charlie Gates, and me—and it began over a dinner at a Denver restaurant in the spring of 2005. John and I started talking about “what if.” John, like the other IAALS founders, has never heard the words “it cannot be done,” and IAALS was no exception. 

From her 5’3” frame, Sheila Hollis has cast a long shadow in the law, as a trailblazer, innovator, and international leader. She is Colorado grown and educated, and now has deep roots in our nation’s capital, where she brokers with the best of them. I had an initial “taste” of that at our very first dinner together in Washington, D.C., at a restaurant that she frequents often, where she knows the menu, the wine list, the staff, and many of the patrons. I felt like I was getting a peek at the in-crowd.

Russell has been with IAALS from the first moment. He came to us at the recommendation of Judge Richard Matsch of the Federal District Court in Denver. Russell had just left his position as Deputy Director of the Federal Judicial Center and joined the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program. Judge Matsch told me that if we could get Russell on our Board, we would have won the lottery. And indeed, we did. Russell has been our secret weapon—our empirical conscience. 

Bill has been involved with IAALS since 2012, when we launched the Honoring Families Initiative Advisory Committee on which he serves. We have worked together on our original vision-paper, on the Center for Out-of-Court Divorce, the Family Bar Summit, The Modern Family Court Judge, and now our online dispute resolution project called Court Compass. At every turn, every phone call, every email, Bill has been a generous, responsive, and wise partner.

Last month, in "We Won’t See You in Court: The Era of Tort Lawsuits Is Waning," the Wall Street Journal took a look at the decline in tort lawsuit filings and the reasons fueling the decline, citing “state restrictions on litigation, the increasing cost of bringing suits, improved auto safety, and a long campaign by businesses to turn public opinion against plaintiffs and their lawyers.” At first blush, this may seem like good news: lawsuits are down, people are suing less! However, I caution that it is far from good news and, if this trend continues, the courts may be in danger of becoming irrelevant.

When she became President of the American Bar Association, Linda Klein had a goal of traveling to every state to meet with bar members. It was a commitment that not everyone may fully appreciate. Is there really any greater proof of dedication to and passion for the job than committing oneself to a life in constant motion and going weeks without sleeping in your own bed?

Aspen has been the home of things of great value for a long time… beginning with silver. Today, one of the treasures in Aspen is the Aspen Institute. It was founded in 1950 to promote the “appreciation of open minded ideas and values, open dialogue and enlightened leadership.” One aspect of the Institute is the Justice and Society program, which focuses on issues related to the meaning of justice and how a just society ought to balance fundamental rights with public policy.

I spent two weeks in Australia in May, meeting Australian judges, lawyers, law professors, deans, and legal service providers. I spoke at a conference dedicated to examining the role of empirical data in legal system reform, visited two Family Relationship Centres, and horrified a group of Australian judges by detailing how judges are elected in partisan elections in some states in the United States. The whole experience confirmed my notion that Australia is leading the way in legal system reform.

In a recent commentary in The Federal Lawyer, Judge Jack Zouhary analogized being a judge working to implement the new Federal Civil Rules to being a baseball team manager. He wrote that “[t]he team manager tries to make the right in-game decisions, but also to have a winning season.” He then defines a winning season for a judge as shepherding cases to a successful conclusion, “whether that conclusion be a trial, a decision on a dispositive motion, or a settlement.” Few judges or attorneys have embraced the call for reform with such passion, intelligence, creativity, and integrity as Judge Zouhary.

Stanton Dodge knocked on the doors at DISH until they hired him. His advice to young lawyers is to figure out what you love, and do that. For his part, he figured out that he was fascinated by the broadcast satellite business. He started in any position DISH would give him, and worked his way to the top. Stanton is now General Counsel. We first met in the elevators at the courthouse, when he was clerking for the Court of Appeals and I was newly on the Colorado Supreme Court. Many years later, he showed up at IAALS and told us he believed in our mission and wanted to support us. In the intervening years, he has helped us envision and execute on convenings, bring together stakeholders, identify key issues, and come up with solutions.

The Rule of Law is absolutely under attack in the United States of America—from elected officials, state legislative bodies, and groups of individuals. The attacks are apparent in politicians’ tirades, legislative proposals that would limit the authority of courts, and assaults on established principles of law such as federal versus state authority. But, the solution is not to put sandbags along the perimeters and bemoan the idiocy of some people.