News & Updates

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.

On November 3-4, 2016, IAALS convened a blue ribbon group of judges, scholars, and attorneys from across the country to discuss best practices for procedural rules for judicial recusal. The group discussed the need for procedures that are fair to both judges and litigants, that provide transparency without sacrificing efficiency, and that uphold the public’s confidence in the fairness and impartiality of the judiciary.

A contentious and likely expensive supreme court campaign is expected in April 2013, with Justice Patience Roggensack seeking reelection and at least three candidates expressing interest in challenging her. The outcome of the race has the potential to alter the ideological balance on the seven-mamber court, as Justice Roggensack is part of the court’s four-member conservative majority.

This article, which we discovered here, looks at the opportunities in teaching a real estate class "from the dirt" and discusses a class in which students interact with a parcel of land from the perspective of practicing lawyers. Click here to read…

On the front of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., is the proclamation “Equal Justice Under Law.” However, according to our Cases Without Counsel study, in some jurisdictions nearly 80 percent of people with a court case end up representing themselves. For many, not being able to afford a lawyer is the main reason for the wide justice gap.

Ben Madison, an Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Fellow, recently discussed teaching materials and help available for those who want to try Carnegie methods in a post on the Best Practices for Legal Education blog. He noted that “plenty know about Carnegie’s recommendations, but too few know of the steps taken, since the report, to implement it.”

The authors suggest that, though the Supreme Court of the United States has in recent years struck down campaign finance laws, it may be willing to tolerate limits on spending in judicial elections. Click here to read the article.

In a time when nearly everyone has an online presence, more and more jurisdictions are having to navigate the extent to which trial lawyers can use a juror's social media to inform jury selection. In 2014, the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility released Formal Opinion 466 on this topic. The Committee said that lawyers can review a juror or potential juror’s internet presence before or during a trial so long as they do not communicate with or request access from those jurors.

Federal public defender Ray Moore was one of 11 nominees voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 14. If the timetable proceeds as it has with other nominees, the full Senate would vote on Moore’s nomination in April or May, though an informal Senate agreement regarding the time allowed for filibustering may speed up the overall confirmation process.

Senator Barbara Boxer continues to push the American Bar Association to require law schools to produce accurate job statistics and called the ABA's actions to date "half measures." Click here to read the article.

This week, the North Carolina Senate created the new Senate Select Committee on Judicial Reform and Redistricting to consider various options for how the state selects judges. The committee’s formation comes after the North Carolina legislature took several steps recently to shake up the state's judicial system. Back in March, the legislature voted to override the governor’s veto of House Bill 100, which requires North Carolina Superior Court and District Court judges to identify their party affiliation on ballots. Proponents of the bill say voters want to know everything they can about judicial candidates when they vote. Opponents, like the governor, argue the bill politicizes the courts.

The house of representatives approved with a 78-14 vote a proposed constitutional amendment that would alter the process for selecting Tennessee’s appellate judges. The senate approved the measure 29-2 in February. The legislature also approved the proposal in 2012, so it will be on the ballot in 2014.

“The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2009-10,” by the Justice at Stake Campaign, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, and the National Institute on Money in State Politics, is released as the presidential race is heating up -- with…

In July 2016, IAALS published Foundations for Practice: The Whole Lawyer and the Character Quotient, which shared findings from a survey that asked more than 24,000 lawyers what new lawyers need as they enter the profession. In the survey, we also collected from respondents ten demographic and practice-specific characteristics. We thought we might observe interesting, informative, and actionable differences across these demographics and characteristics. However, as we conducted analysis of the survey data for our reports, it became clear that our expectation was misplaced.

A group of Republican members of the house of representatives have proposed cutting the pay of the four remaining Iowa Supreme Court justices who participated in Varnum v. Brien, a unanimous 2009 ruling that struck down a state law banning same-sex marriages.

President Obama’s efforts to fill judicial vacancies have been complicated by the American Bar Association’s ratings of potential nominees. The ABA’s judicial vetting committee has rated 14 of 185 potential nominees as “not qualified,” and the administration has a policy of not nominating such candidates.

Public trust and confidence in our judiciary, and our judges, is vital. Yet, over the last several decades, that trust has been eroded. For people to trust judges again, we must ensure a series of pillars are in place: improved ways of selecting judges; improved ways of evaluating judges’ performance; and improved systems for disciplining judges who abuse their power—which is the subject of a new IAALS report.

Increasingly, law firms, corporate employers, public interest organizations, government entities, and other organizations that employ lawyers are relying on core competencies when hiring, assessing, and promoting new lawyers. We want to better understand how the legal profession defines entry-level core competencies. Do you and your organization use core competencies for entry-level lawyers? Are you willing to share them?

A state court judge ruled that the governor must disclose the names of nominees submitted by the judicial selection commission. Unlike his predecessors, the governor had refused to make the names public because he feared it would deter attorneys from applying for judgeships if the names were disclosed.

The family justice system was built on the assumption that litigants would be represented by lawyers, but that assumption no longer holds true. It is no secret among lawyers, court staff, and judges—if not the general population itself—that more and more people are representing themselves through their divorce process, instead of hiring an attorney.