News & Updates

In a recent article, the Economist discusses how "money and back-room politicking are contaminating the selection of judges." The relative ease with which partisan groups can reach voters during a contested judicial election cycle has caused an ever-increasing flood of money to pour into judicial elections. As a result, a candidate's financial and political backing now outweighs their actual qualifications in determining who serves on the bench.

This month, IAALS launched the first edition of IAALS Report, our new monthly newsletter. It’s a great way to keep up with news and progress in all four of our initiatives: Quality Judges, Rule One, Honoring Families, and Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers. We believe IAALS Report will be a convenient way to keep you even more informed about issues affecting the civil justice system as we move into 2013.

Judicial campaign spending amounts across the nation skyrocketed in the recent election cycle, threatening public perceptions of the independence, fairness, and impartiality of the courts. Driven by the desire to tilt the political balance on the court or to remove a judge from the bench because of unpopular rulings, political parties and outside groups spent vast amounts of unregulated money toward retaining or defeating a particular judge.

When they return in January, South Carolina legislators will elect judges for nine new circuit and family court judgeships, providing critics of this selection process with an opportunity to press their case. Their concerns center on the judicial merit selection commission, a ten-member body appointed by legislative leaders—and including six legislators—that screens and recommends judicial candidates.

According to a 1974 amendment to Arizona’s constitution, counties with a population of at least 250,000 must select their superior court judges via commission-based gubernatorial appointment—a.k.a. merit selection—rather than in contested elections. Pinal County exceeded that population threshold in the 2010 census, but the transition to merit selection has not been a smooth one.

The D.C. Bar Judicial Evaluations Committee is beginning its annual survey of attorneys about judges sitting on the D.C. Court of Appeals and D.C. Superior Court. The results of the evaluations are given to the evaluated judge and the chief judge of his/her court.

In the wake of the November elections, the California Supreme Court adopted amendments to the code of judicial ethics that address judicial campaigns. The new rules require appellate judges, who stand for retention every twelve years, to recuse themselves from hearing cases involving parties who have made campaign contributions of at least $5000.

A University of Michigan research project looked at the effects of divorce on women's health insurance rates and coverage and found that women are less likely to be insured following a divorce. It is estimated that 115,000 women lose health insurance coverage following a divorce and that 65,000 women become uninsured in the months following the divorce.

IAALS Advisory Board Member and Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Advisory Committee Member Richard Baer will be joining Liberty Media Corporation on January 1, 2013, as Senior Vice President and General Counsel. Baer will be returning to Denver after serving as the Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer for UnitedHealth Group since May 2011.

The Northern District of California unveiled a new set of guidelines on Tuesday for the discovery of electronically stored information (ESI). The guidelines were developed by a bench-bar committee chaired by Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. LaPorte in partnership with the Rules Committee. In addition to the guidelines, the court has also adopted an ESI checklist for use during the Rule 26(f) meet and confer process and a model stipulated order.

Judicial performance evaluation results published by the new Utah Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission (JPEC) were not seen by many Utah citizens, the JPEC reports. For the first time, the Lieutenant Governor’s Office did not send the voter information pamphlet to all registered voters.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has made history by being the first major federal courthouse in the country to have an all-woman bench. And five of the six judges are women of color.

Several groups have filed a motion requesting that Justice Paul Newby recuse himself from hearing their challenge to the legislature’s redistricting plan because of the campaign support he received from individuals and groups with a direct stake in the outcome of the litigation.

Governor Rick Perry appointed his chief of staff to fill a supreme court vacancy created by Justice Dale Wainwright’s September resignation. Governor Perry has a history of appointing close advisors to top state positions including seats on the high court.

IAALS has just released a Rule One Initiative research report entitled Measuring Rule 16.1: Colorado’s Simplified Procedure Experiment. In 2004, the Colorado Supreme Court put in place Rule 16.1, a voluntary pretrial process for smaller dollar-volume civil cases, with the hope of providing a more efficient path to resolution. This new reports sets forth the results of an empirical study of Rule 16.1, including its role and impact.

A Metropolitan Corporate Counsel article this week asks "Are Courts Beginning to Take Proportionality Seriously in E-Discovery?" As this article points out, “the tide may be changing” with a "variety of recent developments [that] demonstrate that courts are relying on the principle of proportionality with increasing frequency and vigor when assessing the scope and limits of e-discovery."

Governor Sam Brownback and his conservative allies have gained substantial majorities in both houses of the Kansas Legislature as a result of the recent general election. With this support, it is predicted that in early 2013 Governor Brownback will propose a constitutional amendment replacing the current merit selection system for the Kansas Supreme Court and Court of Appeals with partisan elections along with term limits to create turnover on the benches.

Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Fellow, Professor Michael Madison, has written a blog post examining the state of legal education and emphasizing the need for change. Professor Madison suggests that law schools need to integrate the client relationship throughout their curriculum to prevent the turmoil in the profession from escalating.

In August, the American Bar Association formed the Task Force on the Future of Legal Education to analyze the challenges facing law schools. The Task Force is now seeking comments about the goals law schools should adopt; student demographics; how schools should be financed and accredited; and the ways in which law school costs affect students and the legal profession.

Speaking at the Colorado Judicial Institute’s Tenth Annual Judicial Excellence for Colorado dinner, former Iowa justices Marsha Ternus, David Baker, and Michael Streit stressed the importance to the business and legal communities of maintaining an independent judiciary. According to Justice Ternus, this is a critical factor for businesses in deciding where to locate, as they “want predictability and to know that the courts follow the facts of law, not the whims of special interest groups.”