News & Updates

Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers is proud to note that David Thomson, one of our first Fellows, is being honored with the Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of Denver. The award recognizes excellence in teaching and emphasizes the degree to which Thomson's teaching has constructively influenced his students. This honor will be conferred at the University of Denver's Fall Convocation in October 2012.

In November, Oregon made history by introducing a non-exam, performance-based pathway to licensure for lawyers. By exploring alternative routes and gathering data, other states can establish rigorous, fair systems that foster competent legal professionals.

Those who attended the 4th Annual Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Conference were among the first to learn about initial results from our national Foundations for Practice study. We will be sharing detailed results over the next several months, but here is a glimpse of what we already know.

Thirty-three percent of supreme, appellate, and superior court judges are women—an increase of eight percent since 2002. This figure comes close to matching the percentage of Connecticut Bar Association members who are women—34 percent.

At IAALS, philanthropic support is essential to advancing our mission of building a more accessible, fair, and efficient legal system. To assist in these efforts, we recently welcomed Megan Loeb as our Assistant Director of Development, Foundations, and Sponsored Programs.

An important takeaway from the May 2010 Conference on Civil Litigation held at Duke University Law School, sponsored by the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, was that the disposition of civil actions in our federal courts could be improved by advancing early judicial case management. As a result, the package of amendments that grew out of the Duke Conference, and that went into effect on December 1 of this year, seek to promote sustained, active, hands-on judicial case management.

In Sanders County Republican Committee v. Bullock, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Montana law that restricted political parties from endorsing or contributing to judicial campaigns. The Atlantic reports their disfavor with the Ninth Circuit’s decision, maintaining the statute acted to “protect the integrity of [Montana’s] nonpartisan judicial elections” and “stood as a bulwark against the corroding effect of money's influence on judicial integrity.”

This week, the Denver Post published an article highlighting Denver’s new Center for Out-of-Court Divorce, which provides a child-focused, less-adversarial, and potentially less-costly approach for families when parents are separating.

Following public interviews of 18 applicants and private deliberations, the appellate judicial commission selected three nominees for possible appointment to the supreme court vacancy created by Justice Ray Price’s retirement. Three interviewees were women and one was a minority, with six from outside metropolitan areas. Governor Nixon must make the appointment within 60 days.

A recent study by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) is shedding new light on the demographics of state judiciaries across the country. The Gavel Gap project collected data based on the race, ethnicity, and gender of 10,000 sitting state court judges, and then analyzed how closely each state’s bench reflects its population.

Recognizing that there is widespread concern that the civil justice system is too complex, costs too much, and takes too long, a new report provides recommendations for designing short, summary, and expedited (“SSE”) programs and calls for implementation of such programs on a national scale. The report, A Return to Trials: Implementing Effective Short, Summary, and Expedited Civil Action Programs, is co-authored by IAALS, ABOTA, and the NCSC.

The Conference of Chief Justices has recognized the important needs of litigants in our state courts, and has answered the call to action to improve our civil justice system by adopting the Recommendations of its Civil Justice Improvements Committee earlier this month. 

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."

IAALS is pleased to welcome Dona Playton as its new Director of the Honoring Families Initiative effective December 23, 2016. Dona comes to IAALS from the University of Wyoming College of Law where she was a senior lecturer as well as the Director of…

Rather than being elected by the voters, Delaware’s judges are appointed by the governor with senate confirmation. Since 1977, Delaware governors have entered an executive order creating a judicial nominating commission to screen applicants and recommend the best qualified candidates. In the wake of several recent judicial appointments, Governor Markell praised this selection process in an online video.

This article cites Educating Lawyers in its discussion of law schools turning to experiential models for ethics courses. This year, Yale Law School started the Ethics Bureau, a clinic in which law students assist lawyers facing ethics violations…

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.

Two candidates have filed to challenge Justice Pat Roggensack’s bid for another six-year term on the Wisconsin high court. One of those candidates has encouraged his opponents to discuss their party affiliation and how they would rule on hot-button issues with voters, despite the fact that Wisconsin judicial elections are officially nonpartisan.

Missouri Bar President John S. Johnston countered a recent Wall Street Journal editorial attack on its merit-based judicial selection system: "Although I usually find your opinion pieces very good, I read with sadness your editorial 'Missouri Compromised.' Your editorial position on the issue of merit selection of judges, often called The Missouri Plan, is simply wrong."

The 6th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference is right around the corner! It has become ETL Conference tradition to kick off the first day with a series of Ignite presentations. Presenters have 6 minutes, 20 slides, and 18 seconds per slide to share their projects, successes, and innovative ideas with a room full of legal educators and employers. In past years, presenters—and attendees—have been mostly from Consortium Schools. This year, all registrants are welcome—and in that spirit, we are also inviting any registrant to give an Ignite presentation!