News & Updates

Much has been done over the past five years to address the cost and delay in the civil justice process, and much of that work has focused on discovery. Recognizing that there are equal challenges and opportunities for improvement in the area of motions practice, IAALS has focused on understanding the current motions landscape and issuing recommendations for improvement. In this effort, IAALS has released a new report intended to spark a national conversation about the current challenges of summary judgment.

In remarks at last week’s annual conference of the state bar association, Justice Barry Albin encouraged members of the legal profession and the public to defend New Jersey’s courts against attacks by the other two branches based on dissatisfaction with court decisions. He went on to suggest that the governor and the legislature have injected politics into the judicial appointment process.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Congress might be readying for congressional hearings law schools, their job placement numbers, and the debt their graduates are carrying with them.

Through its Better Access through Unbundling Conference, IAALS has set the national agenda for expanding legal access through limited scope services—and the table is set for the use and growth of unbundling. Jurisdictions have the benefit of model rules, bar endorsement, and replicable models to encourage lawyers to unbundle and make that availability known to consumers.

Last week, controversy arose in Kansas over Governor Brownback's announcement that he would not release the names of applicants for a court of appeals vacancy. The governor initially rejected a petition requesting that applicants' names be released, but he may be reconsidering that decision. Meanwhile, screening committees in Wisconsin and Florida, established to assist them in recommending potential federal judges to the White House, have differing plans on the confidentiality of applicant names.

The December 2011 edition of Selection Snapshots is now available.

This month, IAALS welcomes Lynnea Louison as our new Senior Director of Operations. We are so fortunate to have someone of her experience and caliber join our team, and we are excited for what the future holds. Welcome to the IAALS family, Lynnea!  

Part of what we do at IAALS is to convene people who have different viewpoints around a particular topic—in hopes that areas of consensus will emerge from the dialogue. We convened one such group last spring, comprised of ideologically and experientially diverse participants, on the subject of judicial selection and the attributes we want in our judges. Focused on a simple question, "What are the most important characteristics or qualities of a judge," there was remarkable unanimity around the room.

In upholding the state’s ban on direct corporate contributions to political candidates and parties, the supreme court noted that judicial elections are particularly vulnerable to anonymous spending by large corporations.

Technological advances in the legal field are growing around the world, but different countries are seeing that growth manifest at different speeds and in different ways. In Australia, legal technology is just beginning to explode, and very quickly.

Over the summer, the Tennessee legislature declined to renew the state's judicial nominating commission, which was used to recommend well-qualified candidates for appellate judgeships to the governor. Instead, lawmakers chose to let Tennesseans weigh in on the issue in 2014. The judicial selection process appeared to be in limbo in the interim, but Republican Governor Bill Haslam has acted to fill the gap, creating a screening panel by executive order.

The current standards for education of new lawyers are problematic, but we cannot fix legal education without addressing the challenges that face the legal system as a whole.

In partnership with national experts, IAALS has developed three new guides to support real change in state courts. Stemming from our work on the Civil Justice Initiative and Family Justice Initiative, the guides are designed to assist in creating effective self-help information for those who need it, developing problem-solving approaches for families in court, and providing insight for judges who interface with self-represented litigants.

In a recent opinion dissenting from the denial of certiorari in an Alabama death penalty case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether the pressures of partisan judicial elections influence judges' decisions in cases involving hot-button issues like capital punishment. Social scientists have examined the question before, and have come to similar conclusions.

Though they have been proponents of electing judges in the past, two justices are calling for moving to some form of merit selection for the state's supreme court. Justices Crooks and Bradley cited concerns about the surge in spending on supreme court races, as well as the lack of meaningful disclosure and recusal rules.

From my perspective as the director of a law school innovation lab, legal education is disengaged from the regulatory reform effort: only a handful of legal academics have chimed in on regulatory reform or been involved in task force efforts. But legal education should join the conversation and prepare for the changes ahead, for several reasons.

It comes as no surprise to those who work in or with the courts that many litigants these days proceed through the civil and family court system without an attorney. The figures collected and released in Indiana’s recent State of the Judiciary show that over half of all civil and family law litigants in 2013 were self-represented. And such high rates are not unique to Indiana.

In February, twelve more law schools were targeted with lawsuits claiming they misled prospective students about future job prospects. But some say the plaintiffs have little chance of success.

This month, The Pew Charitable Trusts released a new report that looks at trends in debt collection lawsuits in the United States and suggests steps that courts can take to modernize our state civil justice system and ensure access to justice. The economic impacts of the pandemic make these recommendations all the more critical and timely.

With state legislatures in session around the country and considering bills that would impact the selection and tenure of state judges, IAALS Online provides this summary of where things stand at the end of March. Developments in: Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington.