News & Updates

Indiana's superior courts are created by statute, and as such, the method of selecting judges is determined by statute as well and varies from county to county. In two counties, superior court judges are chosen through a commission-based appointment process, while in all other counties these judges are chosen in partisan or nonpartisan elections. Both of these selection processes are currently the subject of controversy.

The Coalition for Impartial Justice has been working for several years to move Minnesota from nonpartisan judicial elections to commission-based appointment with retention elections and performance evaluation, which would require amending the state constitution. The proposal has bipartisan support, with sponsors on both sides of the aisle, but some Republican lawmakers have recently withdrawn their support in response to pressure from their party.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor spent a few days last week with us here at IAALS, where we held a meeting of the O'Connor Advisory Committee to the Quality Judges Initiative. Justice O'Connor also engaged in a "fireside chat" under the rubric of the John Paul Stevens Lecture about her life and career. Former Arizona Chief Justice Ruth McGregor and I joined her for the conversation, but it was Justice O'Connor who stole the show.

The State Bar of Michigan, which represents more than 43,000 attorneys and judges, has asked the secretary of state to require disclosure of funders of "issue ads" in state elections. Specifically, the bar is seeking an interpretive ruling that such ads should be treated as advocacy rather than electioneering and thus as official campaign spending. Such a ruling would require the disclosure of donors who are currently anonymous.

The ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education has released its draft report, which includes proposals and conclusions about the pricing structure of law schools, liberalizing or eliminating accreditation certain standards, speeding the pace of innovation and practical skills training, and using non-lawyers for broader delivery of law-related services. Chair Randall T. Shepard will present the Task Force's proposals to more than 80 legal educators at the 2nd Annual Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Conference in Denver on October 4.

In a 5-0 ruling, the Arizona Supreme Court struck down a law that required the state’s judicial nominating commission to send the names of five candidates to the governor for possible appointment. According to the court’s opinion, “the Legislature has no authority to statutorily mandate procedures inconsistent with Arizona's Constitution,” which allows commissions to give the governor as few as three names.

Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers announces its second annual conference, which will focus on connecting the profession and the academy to ensure that law graduates are prepared to begin a career of service to clients, service to the legal system, and service to society. Conference participants will focus on how to design and deliver a modern legal education that educates lawyers to the highest standards of competence and professionalism.

Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson of the Supreme Court of Texas announced this week that he will resign from the court effective October 1. He has served on the court since 2001. Chief Justice Jefferson implemented a number of administrative innovations during his tenure as chief. Chief Justice Jefferson is a founding member of the O'Connor Advisory Committee to the Quality Judges Initiative, having joined the committee soon after it was established in late 2009.

The new Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families at the University of Denver is open for business. Media buzz around the first-of-its-kind Center, based on the model developed by IAALS, continues to grow. Listen to the interview with Rebecca Love Kourlis and Melinda Taylor.

We are pleased to announce the newest member of our Consortium of law schools committed to innovation: Touro Law Center. Among Touro’s latest projects is its ProBono Uncontested Divorce Project, a required part of the experiential curriculum for first year students that also helps students to satisfy New York’s new pro bono requirements. Touro Law Center will join the rest of the Consortium in Denver, October 3-5, 2013, for our 2nd Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference.

The American Bar Association’s 2013 Annual Meeting in San Francisco was a sprawling event with thousands of attendees spread out over 20 hotels and attending more than 200 continuing legal education programs and countless other meetings. Given all of this, it was interesting to watch as common themes began to emerge and thread the event and its participants together. One of those themes was legal education.

As a subscriber to IAALS Online, you are one of our many partners. We thank you for your interest, your input, and your support. We want to share with you a bit more about other ways in which we are supported and funded, and how you can engage with us further. We welcome your creative and strategic input as our partners in the improvement of the American civil justice system.

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.

According to a poll funded by the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, 74 percent of Oklahoma voters favor choosing appellate judges in contested elections over a merit selection and retention process, and 69 percent support amending the constitution to make this change. Seventy-six percent of respondents want term limits for appellate judges.

The Honoring Families Initiative has released a white paper on the role of courts and communities in separation and divorce. Designed to spark national conversation and encourage collaboration between different disciplines, the paper sets the stage for our work in the years to come. Central to the premise of the paper is that the needs of children and families effected by divorce or separation have changed drastically, the system has not been able to keep pace, and the needs of children and families are increasingly not being met.

preLaw Magazine's 2013 Back to School issue highlights numerous achievements from our Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Consortium schools. In an article naming the top schools for externships around the country, several Consortium schools were ranked among the very top for their experiential opportunities and programs. The University of St. Thomas ranked #1, Northeastern University ranked #2, the University of Denver followed close at #8, with Southwestern University, the University of New Hampshire, Indiana University, and American University all ranking in the top 25.

In the latest edition of Unified Family Court Connection, IAALS Honoring Families Initiative Advisory Committee members William J. Howe, III and Justice Paul J. DeMuniz highlight Oregon's efforts to better serve children and families dealing with divorce and conflict. Included in its efforts is an Informal Domestic Relations Trial that IAALS helped the Oregon State Family Law Advisory Committee develop. The authors also discuss the model for Resource Centers for Separating and Divorcing Families, which was developed by the Honoring Families Initiative.

The Delaware Legislature recently passed a resolution requesting a study to examine the possibility of opening Family Court proceedings to the public. Delaware's legislature has shown a long history of interest in opening such proceedings, beginning in 1992. The review must be complete by February 15, 2014.

Last week, during a town hall at Binghamton University, President Obama jumped into the legal education fray when he suggested that law schools could increase the value of a law degree without sacrificing its quality by moving from a three-year program to a two-year program. The two-year/three-year debate has been alive and well in legal education reform circles for some time, but the President’s comments catapulted the conversation into the national spotlight. What do you think?

Last week, Governor Brownback nominated his chief counsel, Caleb Stegall, to a newly created seat on Kansas' court of appeals, reigniting a war of words between his supporters and detractors. Now, in response to the charge that Brownback pushed for a change in the selection process in order to appoint Stegall to the bench, a member of the judicial nominating commission is speaking out.