News & Updates

If there's one thing the people in the room at the ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education can agree on today, it's that something has to give. But just what has to give? That still seems to be up for debate. In the opening session, opinions ranged nearly as wide as the topics, which included the deregulation of the profession, the deregulation of law schools, online education, US News, faculty scholarship, student expectations, consumer expectations, access to justice, and curriculum.

Larry Ribstein comments on changes in corporate legal services, which find companies first doing away with the law firms as middle men and the then restructuring internal legal teams and “embedding” lawyers throughout the organization.

We are pleased to announce the next "phase" of IAALS, in recognition that continuous improvement is not only vital for our legal system—it is vital within IAALS. Over the last year, we have been working to reshape and restructure IAALS to allow us to be as nimble, visible, and impactful as possible. To that end, we have bolstered our leadership, changed our organization, and launched our new website.

According to new data from the Center for Public Integrity, outside interest groups spent more than $11.7 million in ten states on supreme court elections—both contested and retention—in 2012 and 2013. Forty percent of this spending came from out-of-state organizations. The Center's data also show that 75 percent of the outside spending in 2012 and 2013 stemmed from the ongoing battle between trial attorneys and business groups.

A trial court judge was censured and suspended without pay for six months for living outside her district and misleading investigators about it. The constitution requires judges to live in the district in which they serve at the time of their selection and throughout their term.

Since publishing the results of our Foundations for Practice survey, we have been using those results in the second phase of the project to work with select law schools to develop a set of learning outcomes, assessments, instructional designs, and hiring tools to instill and identify desired characteristics, competencies, and skills in future lawyers. 

Ann Roan, State Training Director for the Colorado Public Defender's Office, advocates for more practical skills education within law school classrooms in order to ease the transition into the high stakes environment of the courtroom. In her Voices from the Field interview, Roan suggests recalibrating the instructional emphasis between doctrine and practice in a way that allows students to actually apply what they learn. Underscoring the importance of balancing doctrinal and experiential learning, Roan believes “You have to know the rules of the game before you can excel in the skills of the game.”

The March 2012 Republican primary could determine who the next chief justice will be. Three Republicans are vying for the seat, but no Democratic challengers have emerged.

Next month IAALS will participate in an American Bar Association webinar, titled Hurricanes, Floods, and Fires, Oh My!: How to Improve Discovery in a Flood of Post-Disaster Property Insurance Lawsuits, which will also feature IAALS' initial discovery protocols for first-party insurance cases arising from disasters. 

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor spent a few days last week with us here at IAALS, where we held a meeting of the O'Connor Advisory Committee to the Quality Judges Initiative. Justice O'Connor also engaged in a "fireside chat" under the rubric of the John Paul Stevens Lecture about her life and career. Former Arizona Chief Justice Ruth McGregor and I joined her for the conversation, but it was Justice O'Connor who stole the show.

The article (subscription required) reviews the Model Order on E-Discovery in Patent Cases and commends the work of the Federal Circuit Advisory Council's E-Discovery Committee and Judge Randall Rader, who unveiled the order at the Eastern District…

Based on IAALS' model for out-of-court divorce, the Family Resolutions Specialty Court in Massachusetts helps parents of minor children work through issues related to divorce, separation, paternity, and more—and keeps the focus on the best interests of the child.

Pennsylvania is one of at least four states that holds judicial elections in off-years. This November, two candidates competed for a seat on the superior court (an intermediate appellate court) and four appellate judges, including two supreme court justices, stood for retention. Additionally, in New York, voters considered a proposed constitutional amendment that would have raised the mandatory retirement age for judges on the state's highest court and major trials courts.

The latest edition of Rule One Review is now available. Rule One Review is a quarterly newsletter that shares information about pilot projects and other civil rules projects being monitored by the Rule One Initiative. Sign up for Rule One Review and…

Last month, Australia’s Attorney-General announced he would continue with a plan to merge the specialist Family Court of Australia with the lower-level Federal Circuit Court, with the aim to improve efficiency, but not everyone is convinced.

IAALS will be closed from December 25 through January 1, but we promise to pick up where we left off in the new year! Thanks for reading and being a part of our mission to change the American legal system for the better. We look forward to more big projects in 2014 and hope you’ll be there to help us spread the word. See you on January 2!

Stanford Law School announced today the completion of the first phase of comprehensive reforms to its legal curriculum that began in November 2006—successfully transforming its traditional law degree into a multi-dimensional JD, which combines the study of other disciplines with team-oriented, problem-solving techniques together with expanded clinical training that enables students to represent clients and litigate cases while in law school.

The United States of America leads the world in many areas of democracy, technology, economy, and culture, but what holds back American citizens from accessing justice when they need it? In times of extreme uncertainty, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, this is a critical question.

In a recent post on the long-awaited results from pilot project experimentation around the country, we shared evaluations from the New Hampshire and Boston Litigation Session pilot projects. Initial data is now available from Utah as well, where significant rule changes were implemented in 2011, including comprehensive initial disclosures, a requirement that discovery be proportional, and tiered discovery based on amount in controversy.

There are three supreme court seats up for election in November, one of which is an open seat. Though the parties do not officially nominate candidates until their conventions later this year, Democrats give non-binding nods to favorites at the spring convention.