News & Updates

In this short presentation from October’s Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference, I talk about preliminary outcomes of Suffolk’s innovation curriculum. The innovation curriculum consists of courses in legal technology, practice management, and the delivery of legal services that form the basis of Suffolk’s concentration in legal technology and innovation and Accelerator to Practice Program. I

IAALS is all about innovation, for the benefit of everyone who depends on our legal system—from lawyers and judges to everyday citizens who need access to justice. And, 2015 was a good year for us and for people who use the courts. The Rule One…

Citing concerns about the erosion of “citizens’ and businesses’ confidence in the integrity of their judges,” a new report from the Committee for Economic Development calls for states to replace judicial elections with elements of the O’Connor Judicial Selection Plan.

At Seattle University School of Law, our goal is to have a comprehensive, integrated skills curriculum. We feel good about our curriculum’s comprehensiveness; we have focused in recent years on integration. Our legal writing and clinical faculty in particular have collaborated extensively over the last several years, including holding a yearly joint retreat. We also collaborate on the Real Clients in the First Year Project, where our first-year legal writing students work on a slice of a pending clinical case or on a live issue from a legal nonprofit. 

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…

Throughout this month, we've been releasing the fantastic Ignite-style presentations given at our 4th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference by ETL Fellows and faculty from across the ETL Consortium. Faculty discussed an array of issues, from the innovations and outcomes of their school’s classes, programs, or curricula, to innovations within the realm of legal education more broadly.

In this Ignite talk from the 2015 ETL Conference, we talk about the new Problem Solving I course, which is a required course, taught during the 1L Fall Semester. This course introduces students to a standard problem-solving methodology that they can use in a variety of settings, including transactional, litigation, and governmental. This course also stresses the importance of fact gathering. Students participate in five simulations, including an interview each student conducts during the second week of law school.

Just a week ago, the long awaited amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect. Of the amendments, the most significant—and controversial—changes are to Rule 26, which specifically incorporates proportionality into the scope of discovery.

Recently, IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis and I met with the other members and staff of the Conference of Chief Justices Civil Justice Improvements Committee for its fourth plenary meeting in Washington, D.C. The committee is evaluating civil justice improvement efforts around the country and developing guidelines and best practices for civil litigation, as well as caseflow management.

So often when parents begin the process of separation and divorce they feel vulnerable and uncertain about how to proceed. Their greatest fear is the potential of harm to their children. The Center for Out of Court Divorce – Denver (COCD or Center) offers parents a proven way forward that is designed to reduce conflict, save time and money, and support the long term well-being of the family.

On October 1, we came from Albany Law School to present on “How an Inclusive Strategic Planning Process Leads to Faculty Adoption of Institutional Student Learning Outcomes” at the 4th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference in Denver, Colorado. Albany Law’s process of developing learning outcomes began years ago with a conference hosted by Albany Law’s Center for Excellence in Law Teaching (CELT) on “Setting and Assessing Learning Objectives from Day One.” With the momentum and knowledge from the CELT conference and the development of the Albany Law Strategic Plan, which emphasized that “a competency-based curriculum ensures that students achieve the core knowledge and transferable skills necessary to succeed in a fast changing environment,”

As the legal world is focused on the newly implemented amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which went into effect December 1st, there is one group that is already thinking “what next?”—the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. At the…

At Denver Law, we are following the wisdom that counsels conducting assessment in small and discrete pieces. We will, each year, focus on parts of our JD program and assess learning in each using direct (student work product) and/or indirect (student self-reports) data. An example of the latter is our “Externship Program Professional Identity Formation Project.” At the start and upon completion of doing an Externship, Denver Law students rate themselves on ten items associated with professional identity and identity formation. From these responses, we compute a “Prof ID Formation Index” for each student, and we compare these measures before and after the Externship.

In the Jefferson County District Courthouse in Golden, Colorado, family law self-represented litigants in court on post-decree matters have a new resource available to them. The Turelli Foundation, formed by retired Judge Richard Turelli and retired…

Today, December 1, the long awaited amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure go into effect. The “package” of amendments include rule changes across a number of rules (specifically Rules 1, 4, 16, 26, 30, 31, 33, and 34) and focus on increasing cooperation, achieving proportionality in discovery, and encouraging early case management by judges.

We kicked off the 4th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference on October 1 with 16 (yes, sixteen!) Ignite-style presentations, given by ETL Fellows and faculty from across the ETL Consortium. We heard about strategic planning, hybrid programs, new curricula, leadership and skills development, and—importantly—lots of collaboration!

A wave of new amendments to the federal rules of civil procedure will take effect Tuesday, Dec. 1, sparking cultural and operational changes to the nation’s legal system. Approved last April by the U.S. Supreme Court, the amendments are intended to refocus the legal community on providing a just, speedy, and less expensive resolution in litigation for every case.

When spending in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court election surged to more than $16.5 million this month, it set a new record in U.S. history. Although, while it was record-breaking, this election was no aberration. Its sky-high spending, ad war among special interests, and dominance by candidates who spent the most all fit into a pattern.

The Supreme Court of India recently struck down a new law that sought to increase the executive branch’s power over the selection of judges. The Court ruled the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act unconstitutional, commenting that “once the constitutional structure is shaken, democracy collapses.”

Honoring Families recently convened a diverse cross-section of the national family law bar, with the goal of identifying and discussing improvements to the system that would allow all practitioners to better serve clients and children. The Family Bar Summit: Shaping the System for the Families We Serve challenged participants to shed preconceived notions about the system and engage in forward-thinking discussion on various aspects of the family justice system.