News & Updates

From her 5’3” frame, Sheila Hollis has cast a long shadow in the law, as a trailblazer, innovator, and international leader. She is Colorado grown and educated, and now has deep roots in our nation’s capital, where she brokers with the best of them. I had an initial “taste” of that at our very first dinner together in Washington, D.C., at a restaurant that she frequents often, where she knows the menu, the wine list, the staff, and many of the patrons. I felt like I was getting a peek at the in-crowd.

Last week, Karen J. Mathis was presented with the Community Service Award by the University of Denver. After a distinguished professional career, which included serving as president of the ABA, Executive Director of the Central European and Eurasion Legal Initiative Institute in Prague, and President and CEO of Big Brother Big Sisters of America, Karen returned to her college alma mater last year, to serve as IAALS' Associate Executive Director.

Texas Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson was recently interviewed by The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel. Chief Justice Jefferson is a member of the Advisory Committee for our O'Connor Judicial Selection Project.

The Advisory Committee of the Honoring Families Initiative here at IAALS met last month. The Committee, chaired by Bill Howe, a domestic relations practitioner from Oregon, is a group of multi-disciplinary, extremely experienced and skilled people—who care a great deal about families in the courts. They have been with IAALS since the onset of the HFI work, and they continue to be our secret weapon.

The ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education is meeting today in Indianapolis at the Indiana University McKinney School of Law. The meeting is available via live webcast here. Today the group will hear three presentations: the Current Legal Education Challenge; Licensing, Finance, and Admissions; and Delivery, Innovation, and Barriers.

According to a new report, Michigan had the most expensive judicial races in 2009-10, accounting for one fourth of the $38.4 million spent nationwide. The state also saw the highest spending on TV advertisements and the most attack ads.

Last year, we were in a bind. Our Foundations for Practice project was speeding along but we needed to develop a set of learning outcomes from our survey’s results. To do that, we needed to hire a consultant who really understood learning outcomes. Elizabeth has brought a level of expertise and thoughtfulness that gives us and our partners great confidence in the work we are doing.

Judge Kevin Burke, a Minnesota trial judge and member of the IAALS Board of Advisors, seconded Ohio Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor's call for selection reform in her state. According to Judge Burke, selection reform in Ohio is needed for three reasons: judicial elections may negatively impact public perceptions of judges and courts, not enough voters participate in judicial elections, and more can be done to educate judicial voters.

Paul Lippe, the CEO of Legal OnRamp, weighs in on the ongoing conversation about legal education reform: But I see the issue differently. It is not that law school is incomplete in training lawyers—which by any definition it must be—but that it lacks engagement.

This week IAALS is cohosting the first in a series of webinars with NCSC focused on providing practical information and guidance on implementing civil justice reform. The webinars are part of our three-year Civil Justice Initiative implementation project focused on providing support for on-the-ground reform.

This summer, the Brooklyn Family Court Child Support Study hopes to improve the quality of legal assistance to self-represented litigants in child custody proceedings. Observers will track whether magistrates explain to self-represented litigants the reason for the hearings, explain the courtroom proceedings, and/or exhibit irritation with the litigants. Then, the observers will follow up with the litigants in a brief interview to discern whether the litigants found the proceeding to be fair and whether they understood what took place in the courtroom.

Diversity may be a factor in filling the vacancy. Indiana is one of only three states with no women justices, and only one justice of color currently serves on the court.

This month IAALS is co-hosting the third in a series of webinars with the National Center for State Courts focused on providing practical information and guidance on implementing civil justice reform, titled, "Civil Justice Reform: Making Motions Practice More Effective and Efficient." The webinars are part of our three-year Civil Justice Initiative implementation project focused on providing support for on-the-ground reform through education, expert assistance, regional action planning summits, demonstration projects, and a variety of tools.

In 2012, North Carolina was the only state with contested judicial elections in which voters were provided with performance evaluations of the judicial candidates—both sitting judges and challengers—on their ballot. It is fairly common for bar associations to offer ratings of sitting judges standing for retention or reelection, but this was the first instance of which IAALS is aware where a bar association also evaluated judicial challengers. Since 2012, the NCBA has also offered a voluntary, confidential evaluation program for new judges.

I predict that legal education in general and law schools in particular will continue to be under the microscope in 2012. Some of the criticism is appropriate, and Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers is one of the efforts designed to address that legitimate criticism. Some of it, however, is both projection and scapegoating. 

Between 2016 and 2018, 11 states were awarded grants under the Justice for All Initiative. Now they've completed their strategic planning processes and are ready to begin the implementation phase, with common themes among plans being use of technology, strong governanance, and internal and external communications. 

As the public comment period continues on the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Senate Judiciary Committee joined in the discussion this week by holding a hearing on the proposals. The hearing provided another opportunity for comment on the proposed rules and their potential impact. There was a consistent message from the hearing that empirical research plays an important role in our analysis of these issues.

The three candidates competing to be the Republican candidate for chief justice of the supreme court raised nearly $150,000 in January for the March primary campaign.

Artificial intelligence is no longer just the stuff of science fiction, as more and more entities globally—courts included—are exploring how AI can be utilized to improve processes and help customers solve problems more efficiently. The introduction of AI into courtrooms is exciting, yet it also raises numerous concerns and questions from the legal community.

IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis paid a pre-holiday, virtual visit to LXBN TV to talk about the effects of partisan elections of judges across the country. Kourlis weighed in on the same concerns that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently voiced regarding the influence that partisan elections can have on judges’ decisions.