News & Updates

The IAALS Court Compass project is exploring streamlined and simplified solutions that help people through the divorce and separation process. IAALS is partnering with the North Carolina Judicial Branch and the North Carolina Equal Access to Justice Commission to bring a design sprint workshop to Raleigh on August 11, 2018.

As part of our three-year project to support the modernization and transformation of civil litigation in our state courts, IAALS has helped facilitate a series of regional strategic planning summits to help states develop an action plan for reform or other activities in their respective jurisdictions.

Arizona’s Supreme Court has approved numerous civil justice reforms “aimed at reducing the time and expense it takes to resolve civil cases in Arizona’s superior courts.” The reforms are based on the recommendations of Arizona’s Civil Justice Reform Committee, which was established by the Arizona Supreme Court in December 2015 to “develop recommendations, including rule amendments or pilot projects, to reduce the cost and time required to resolve civil cases in Arizona’s superior courts.”

At its annual meeting this week in New York City, the ABA House of Delegates adopted Resolution 116 urging courts to implement plans that provide meaningful courtroom experience to new lawyers. The resolution—recognizing the important role law firms and clients play in the experience, or lackthereof, that young lawyers receive—also urges law firms and clients to take advantage of those plans.

In a recent article for Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis and Rule One Initiative Director Brittany Kauffman discuss how state court and bar leaders across the country are gearing up for major civil justice reforms using the recently released Roadmap for Implementation. The Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and the Conference of the State Court Administrators (COSCA) have 13 recommendations for improvements that the Roadmap guides toward implementation, in an effort to ensure that the legal system is serving those who need it.

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.

The last ten years has seen an intense and almost singular focus on discovery. E-discovery has been a big reason for this, given its impact on the entire discovery process from identification to production. Nevertheless, there is another important aspect to the pretrial system that also results in great cost and delay—motions.

The January 2017 edition of Family Court Review is dedicated to the Honoring Families Initiative’s Family Bar Summit: Shaping the System for the Families We Serve. The Summit, held in November 2015, brought together national thought leaders from diverse professional organizations to identify obstacles to serving children and families in separation and divorce matters and explore opportunities for meaningful change.

The Deschutes County Circuit Court in Oregon recently adopted an Informal Domestic Relations Trial (IDRT) process to improve access to family court for parties who prefer and will benefit from a simpler decision-making process than a traditional trial. The process is available to parties with attorneys as well as self-represented litigants, and is gaining support as a fair and streamlined way to resolve many family law matters.

On October 5, 2016, I was honored to be a panelist at IAALS’ joint Law Firm Council and Business Leadership Network meeting. There were three panels at this plenary session: 1) a panel of corporate in-house counsel; 2) a panel of outside counsel; and 3) a panel of judges (from both the federal bench and the state bench).

Arizona has long been a leader in civil justice reform, and last week Arizona led the way again with a set of recommendations from its Committee on Civil Justice Reform. The Committee was established by the Arizona Supreme Court in December 2015 to “develop recommendations, including rule amendments or pilot projects, to reduce the cost and time required to resolve civil cases in Arizona’s superior courts.”

The Iowa Supreme Court Family Law Case Processing Reform Task Force recently submitted its final report to the Iowa Supreme Court, concluding a year-long study of the family law court system in Iowa. The Task Force report includes a comprehensive list of recommendations for the Iowa Supreme Court’s consideration, including develop a statewide mediation program for family law cases and identifying barriers to using and encouraging the use of unbundled legal services.

Despite efforts by courts, communities, and bar associations around the country, there remains a serious need for tools that provide self-represented litigants with easy access to the information and resources required to appropriately navigate the court system. Technology is increasingly being leveraged in self-help solutions, and the concept of the litigant portal is at the core of this strategy.

For the last ten years, IAALS—the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System—has worked to rebuild the civil justice system. After much work, and through collaboration with some of the very best minds in the country, we are finally reaching a critical goalpost in that mission.

Early results from Minnesota’s Expedited Litigation Track (ELT) pilot program suggest a reduction in the delays generally caused by either the discovery process or the filing of continuances. The ELT provides a more expedited process for select civil cases (such as personal injury and consumer credit) in two counties in Minnesota, with the goals of a corresponding reduction in the cost of litigation and increased access to the courts.

The American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) has long been a leader in preserving and promoting the civil jury trial right provided by the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This week ABOTA hosts a National Jury Summit in San Francisco…

San Diego's "one-day divorce" pilot project, founded in March 2014, has already seen successes in its first few months. The program, implemented by the San Diego Superior Court, allows couples who meet its requirements to complete a simple divorce in just one day. The success of the program to-date has made some wonder whether it will spread to other jurisdictions.

A recent blog post, penned by former Judge Steven I. Platt, argues for implementing a short, summary, and expedited civil jury trial process in Maryland. There continues to be great interest in these programs, which generally involve a simplified pretrial process and a shortened, expedited trial, and multiple jurisdictions around the country are considering implementing them. As these programs continue to grow in popularity, we recommend several resources.

IAALS is pleased to announce the completion of its preliminary evaluation report on the Colorado Civil Access Pilot Project (CAPP), which tests a new set of pre-trial procedures for business actions in state district court. Our initial analysis reveals that the CAPP process as a whole has succeeded in achieving many of its intended effects, including a reduced time to disposition, increased court interaction, proportional discovery and costs, and a lower level of motions practice.

The San Diego Superior Court has implemented a new pilot program that allows couples to complete a simple divorce in just one day. The program has only a few requirements and is designed to foster collaboration between the parties so that the process can move swiftly toward less-adversarial resolution.