News & Updates

When they return in January, South Carolina legislators will elect judges for nine new circuit and family court judgeships, providing critics of this selection process with an opportunity to press their case. Their concerns center on the judicial merit selection commission, a ten-member body appointed by legislative leaders—and including six legislators—that screens and recommends judicial candidates.

The D.C. Bar Judicial Evaluations Committee is beginning its annual survey of attorneys about judges sitting on the D.C. Court of Appeals and D.C. Superior Court. The results of the evaluations are given to the evaluated judge and the chief judge of his/her court.

A University of Michigan research project looked at the effects of divorce on women's health insurance rates and coverage and found that women are less likely to be insured following a divorce. It is estimated that 115,000 women lose health insurance coverage following a divorce and that 65,000 women become uninsured in the months following the divorce.

In the wake of the November elections, the California Supreme Court adopted amendments to the code of judicial ethics that address judicial campaigns. The new rules require appellate judges, who stand for retention every twelve years, to recuse themselves from hearing cases involving parties who have made campaign contributions of at least $5000.

Governor Rick Perry appointed his chief of staff to fill a supreme court vacancy created by Justice Dale Wainwright’s September resignation. Governor Perry has a history of appointing close advisors to top state positions including seats on the high court.

Judicial performance evaluation results published by the new Utah Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission (JPEC) were not seen by many Utah citizens, the JPEC reports. For the first time, the Lieutenant Governor’s Office did not send the voter information pamphlet to all registered voters.

The Northern District of California unveiled a new set of guidelines on Tuesday for the discovery of electronically stored information (ESI). The guidelines were developed by a bench-bar committee chaired by Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. LaPorte in partnership with the Rules Committee. In addition to the guidelines, the court has also adopted an ESI checklist for use during the Rule 26(f) meet and confer process and a model stipulated order.

Several groups have filed a motion requesting that Justice Paul Newby recuse himself from hearing their challenge to the legislature’s redistricting plan because of the campaign support he received from individuals and groups with a direct stake in the outcome of the litigation.

IAALS Advisory Board Member and Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Advisory Committee Member Richard Baer will be joining Liberty Media Corporation on January 1, 2013, as Senior Vice President and General Counsel. Baer will be returning to Denver after serving as the Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer for UnitedHealth Group since May 2011.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has made history by being the first major federal courthouse in the country to have an all-woman bench. And five of the six judges are women of color.

IAALS has just released a Rule One Initiative research report entitled Measuring Rule 16.1: Colorado’s Simplified Procedure Experiment. In 2004, the Colorado Supreme Court put in place Rule 16.1, a voluntary pretrial process for smaller dollar-volume civil cases, with the hope of providing a more efficient path to resolution. This new reports sets forth the results of an empirical study of Rule 16.1, including its role and impact.

A Metropolitan Corporate Counsel article this week asks "Are Courts Beginning to Take Proportionality Seriously in E-Discovery?" As this article points out, “the tide may be changing” with a "variety of recent developments [that] demonstrate that courts are relying on the principle of proportionality with increasing frequency and vigor when assessing the scope and limits of e-discovery."

Governor Sam Brownback and his conservative allies have gained substantial majorities in both houses of the Kansas Legislature as a result of the recent general election. With this support, it is predicted that in early 2013 Governor Brownback will propose a constitutional amendment replacing the current merit selection system for the Kansas Supreme Court and Court of Appeals with partisan elections along with term limits to create turnover on the benches.

In August, the American Bar Association formed the Task Force on the Future of Legal Education to analyze the challenges facing law schools. The Task Force is now seeking comments about the goals law schools should adopt; student demographics; how schools should be financed and accredited; and the ways in which law school costs affect students and the legal profession.

Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Fellow, Professor Michael Madison, has written a blog post examining the state of legal education and emphasizing the need for change. Professor Madison suggests that law schools need to integrate the client relationship throughout their curriculum to prevent the turmoil in the profession from escalating.

The Texas Supreme Court has issued its long-awaited rules for expedited actions this week, making the process mandatory in cases of $100,000 or less. The rules are being adopted as a result of Texas legislation that called upon the Court to promulgate "rules to promote the prompt, efficient, and cost-effective resolution of civil actions."

In an interview with Parade Magazine, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Honorary Chair of the Advisory Committee to the Quality Judges Initiative, discusses why approval ratings for the U.S. Supreme Court justices have fallen, stressing that the public's broken confidence in the courts is due to misconceptions that the Court should base their decisions on political and personal beliefs rather than on the law.

People for the American Way lauded the work of a federal judicial screening committee established by Senators Udall and Bennet to assist them in recommending to the White House a replacement for a retiring U.S. District Court judge. Upon learning of Chief Judge Wiley Daniel’s plans to take senior status, the senators reactivated the 11-member bipartisan panel they have used for two previous vacancies.

Proponents of replacing Minnesota’s nonpartisan judicial elections with commission-based gubernatorial appointment, retention elections, and performance evaluation were pleased to see Democrats regain a majority in the legislature for 2013, believing that the reform movement lost momentum when Republicans took over in 2010.

Professor Rebecca Aviel, member of the Steering Committee to the Honoring Families Initiative, has won the third annual Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility for her article, “The Boundary Claim’s Caveat: Lawyers and Confidentiality Exceptionalism,” which was published in the Tulane Law Review.