News & Updates

People for the American Way lauded the work of a federal judicial screening committee established by Senators Udall and Bennet to assist them in recommending to the White House a replacement for a retiring U.S. District Court judge. Upon learning of Chief Judge Wiley Daniel’s plans to take senior status, the senators reactivated the 11-member bipartisan panel they have used for two previous vacancies.

Professor Rebecca Aviel, member of the Steering Committee to the Honoring Families Initiative, has won the third annual Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility for her article, “The Boundary Claim’s Caveat: Lawyers and Confidentiality Exceptionalism,” which was published in the Tulane Law Review.

Congratulations to Professor Howard Markman, member of the Honoring Families Initiative Advisory Committee, for receiving the University of Denver's John Evans Professorship Award.

Proponents of replacing Minnesota’s nonpartisan judicial elections with commission-based gubernatorial appointment, retention elections, and performance evaluation were pleased to see Democrats regain a majority in the legislature for 2013, believing that the reform movement lost momentum when Republicans took over in 2010.

The Texas Supreme Court has issued its long-awaited rules for expedited actions this week, making the process mandatory in cases of $100,000 or less. The rules are being adopted as a result of Texas legislation that called upon the Court to promulgate "rules to promote the prompt, efficient, and cost-effective resolution of civil actions."

In an interview with Parade Magazine, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Honorary Chair of the Advisory Committee to the Quality Judges Initiative, discusses why approval ratings for the U.S. Supreme Court justices have fallen, stressing that the public's broken confidence in the courts is due to misconceptions that the Court should base their decisions on political and personal beliefs rather than on the law.

Rebecca Love Kourlis, Executive Director of IAALS, will speak about the organization’s work to improve the use of financial experts in litigation on December 5. She will discuss how civil pretrial processes involving financial experts might be streamlined to increase the experts’ effectiveness and reduce client costs, which is the focus of a recently published report, Another Voice: Financial Experts on Reducing Client Costs in Litigation.

The defeat of two incumbent supreme court justices has led some to consider making changes to the judicial election process. Neither justices’ qualifications were called into question, and both received higher ratings from the state bar association than did their challengers—one of whom was “not recommended.”

Senate Republicans are split on whether to consider confirmation of judicial nominees, many of which have been pending for several months, during the lame-duck session or wait until the next Congress.

Divorce and resolution of child custody issues take a toll. They take a toll on families, they take a toll on the courts and they take a toll on a variety of other impacted communities, and it's not clear that the current system is working. Which is why we’re formally launching our Honoring Families Initiative. Aligned with the greater mission of IAALS, Honoring Families is dedicated to advancing empirically informed models to ensure greater accessibility, efficiency, and fairness in divorce and child custody matters.

On October 19, 2012, the University of Missouri hosted a symposium which addressed how law schools can better prepare students to practice law. The symposium consisted of scholars, practitioners, and judges who analyzed the needs of stakeholders in legal education and discussed potential solutions as to how law schools can most effectively satisfy those needs.

In Bexar County, the recent election has produced another wave of straight-ticket voting on judges. Texas is one of only three states in which voters can cast a straight-party ballot for all candidates, including judicial candidates. This year, Democrats won all but one of the races, but in 2010, a similar partisan sweep resulted in Republicans winning every contested judicial race in Bexar County.

Following the defeat of a proposed constitutional amendment that would have given the governor greater authority in appointing nominating commission members and more discretion in selecting judges, supporters of the measure vowed to "regroup and move forward with something more aggressive" for 2014.

Two supreme court candidates who face a December runoff have taken different tacks in their campaigns. While one candidate has discussed his position as "pro-life, pro-gun and pro-traditional marriage" and a supporter of the death penalty, the other has not publicly shared his views because he does not want to risk having to recuse himself from hearing cases involving controversial issues in the future.

In the spirit of the Jesuit tradition, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law focuses on holistic education and strives to educate the whole law student and equip each with the skills and competencies necessary to be a functioning and confident professional on the day of graduation. A central part of their mission is to ...

This special edition of Selection Snapshots provides an overview of the challenges to judicial retention, court-related ballot measures, supreme court elections, public financing of judicial campaigns, and judicial campaign oversight committees.

In response to the weak job market, Boston College of Law has created a new position — faculty director of experiential learning. The director will be responsible for underscoring and enhancing BC Law’s emphasis on real-world experience for law students. The school hopes this new position will help ensure their graduates are prepared "for every aspect of the practice of law in our global community.”

On Bill Moyer's show, Sally Pederson and Joy Corning, co-founders of a bipartisan coalition called Justice Not Politics, discuss the risks to the judicial system when "justices are at the mercy of partisan passions and money in politics." Justice Not Politics successfully campaigned against conservative groups in Iowa that were working to oust a justice involved in a 2009 unanimous decision recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

The Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Initiative at IAALS is pleased to announce the addition of a new, innovative course to its growing list of course portfolios. International Business Negotiations is taught by Jay Gary Finkelstein and Daniel D. Bradlow at the American University Washington College of Law. The course is a semester-long simulated negotiation of an international business transaction offered to upper level JD and LL.M. students.

Because the exhausting and emotional impact of divorce extends often extends into the work environment, the Huffington Post suggests businesses should actively take a part to improve how courts handle divorce and custody issues. The Huffington Post relies on IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis' article, "It's Just Good Business: The Case for Supporting Reform in Divorce Court," in which she states that if the family court system "can be improved -- such that they cost less money, take less time, and are less adversarial and inflamed -- not only will employees benefit, but so will their employers.