News & Updates

IAALS is thrilled to announce that Chief Judge Susan Blanco, Mark Chandler, Helen M. Hierschbiel, and Victor Quintanilla have joined our Board of Advisors. We are eager to work together to ensure justice for all is a reality for all.

In 2013, the Colorado Judicial Branch created the Self-Represented Litigant Coordinator (Sherlock) program. The Sherlocks, operating in courthouses in each of Colorado’s judicial districts, assist litigants with information on court procedures, forms…

LawMeets, a website that provides law students with free transactional simulations, is now offering free transactional law courses which can be used by individual students or incorporated into law school classes. These online courses will combine lectures and simulations to teach law students the nuts-and-bolts of business transactions.

I recently attended IAALS’ Fourth Civil Justice Reform Summit and served as a faculty member on several panels. It never fails that I come away from these gatherings with more ideas. I began to take notes on this question—what can we do to effect the changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure?

All eight candidates for the state’s appellate courts qualified for public financing, with supreme court candidates receiving $240,100 each and court of appeals candidates receiving $164,400. At least two outside groups are raising and spending funds in support of the Republican supreme court candidate.

This November, five of the seven justices on the Kansas Supreme Court are standing for retention, and many court watchers in Kansas and around the country are anticipating a no-holds-barred election battle. The supreme court on one side and the governor and legislature on the other have been at odds for the last several years over court decisions involving school funding and capital punishment.

Conservative groups have mounted a loosely organized effort to oppose the retention of Justice John Pelander because of his vote in a 3-2 ruling that allows Proposition 121 to appear on the November ballot.

The results of our Foundations for Practice study continue to reverberate throughout law schools and the legal profession, and the concepts of “The Whole Lawyer and the Character Quotient” are being covered in the press as well.

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

Reporter Haley Cohen of The Economist recently toured the Center for Out-of-Court Divorce (COCD) in Denver and wrote about her experience in a December article titled Disruptive Innovation: A spate of start-ups offer alternatives to traditional divorce. We’re delighted to see the COCD attract international media attention because its innovative model for separating and divorcing families deserves the exposure.

The campaign for a seat on Louisiana’s supreme court has taken a negative turn, with the Democratic candidate sponsoring an ad attacking Republican Jeff Hughes’ record as a trial court judge.

With this post, Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers begins a series of reports on legal education: the what, who, and how of innovation. These reports will document the range of current innovations in the areas of curriculum, teaching and learning, faculty, and assessment. They will draw on a number of sources of data, including the American Bar Association/Law School Admissions Council (ABA/LSAC) Official Guide, but the primary source will be the results of Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers’ new survey of innovations currently underway.

Now that a simple majority of votes suffice to confirm a Supreme Court Justice, each party will invariably put forward the most ideologically-extreme candidates that they can. No more moderates, no more coalition-builders, no more impartial judges. Rather, the Court could be populated, over time, by judges who have partisan instincts or agendas—maybe even by judges who have a particular alignment with the president who nominates them.

In response to anticipated legislative proposals to alter the process for selecting the state’s appellate judges, with the most prominent being the discontinuance of the judicial nominating commission and the addition of senate confirmation, the Kansas Bar Association endorsed a plan to restructure the nominating commission.

Law school once set the pattern for modern professional education. In his study of Christopher Columbus Langdell, originator of the case method of teaching law, historian Bruce A. Kimball credits him with the invention of meritocracy as a system for…

Last year the Civil Rules Advisory Committee took up the topic of Rule 30(b)(6) depositions following the submittal of a letter by members of the Council and Federal Practice Task Force of the ABA Section of Litigation, in their individual capacities. Unlike individual depositions, Rule 30(b)(6) depositions are noticed to an organization such as a corporation or government agency, and include a description of the matters for examination. The company must identify and prepare the witness to testify about information known or reasonably available to the organization. The rule was initially adopted to curb the practice of “bandying” where organizations produced one witness after another, with each disclaiming knowledge. In their request for a review of current practices under the Rule, the ABA members highlighted confusion about the Rule’s requirements, as well as instances where the courts have divided on how to interpret those requirements.

The American Bar Association's Task Force on the Future of Legal Education has been collecting comments from individuals and organizations since late last year. Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers submitted a comment focused on aligning legal education with the needs of an evolving profession, and made six recommendations.

In a recent presentation, Professor Daniel Martin Katz of Michigan State University College of Law promoted a new law school model that, among other things, blends practice skills with doctrine and favors students with undergraduate majors in science and engineering.

Over the last three years, California has undertaken an effort to “research and analyze innovative proposals for the justice system of the future.” The work has culminated in a final report that was submitted to the Chief Justice on April 26, 2017. The report from the Commission on the Future of California’s Court System focuses on practical ways to more effectively adjudicate cases, achieve greater fiscal stability, and use technology to enhance the public’s access to the courts. The breadth of the report is tremendous, making sweeping recommendations in criminal law, civil law, family law, court administration, and technology.

Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson of the Texas Supreme Court issued his State of the Judiciary message on March 6. In his remarks, Chief Justice Jefferson, who is also member of the Quality Judges Initiative O’Connor Advisory Committee, called for greater access to justice for litigants and families across the socioeconomic spectrum and more efficient courts that can process cases in a reasonable amount of time.