News & Updates

IAALS’ own Natalie Knowlton was recently interviewed for a Chicago Tribune advice column for self-represented litigants about the problems they face and the tools available that can help increase access to justice for those navigating the legal system without a lawyer.

In the last blog, we explained that the 77 foundations survey respondents identified as being necessary for new lawyers in the short term are largely consistent and definitive across respondents. Still, there were a few differences that highlight foundations some practice settings emphasize over others. Similarly, when we focused on private practice, we discovered only slight variations among different law firm sizes. In this blog, we explore the foundations that make up the whole lawyer for each private practice firm size category, and the differences as compared with one another and the whole lawyer overall.

Changes in recent years to California’s budget, priorities, and policies have resulted in a focus on criminal over civil matters. In the yearly State of the Judiciary address, however, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye highlighted some of the ways California is planning to improve access to justice in its courts. Among them: better meeting the needs of self-represented litigants.

America’s civil justice system is failing to deliver on the promise of a just, speedy, and inexpensive resolution in every case. However, by taking charge of cases from their beginning to end, courts have the power to change that. IAALS’ latest report, Redefining Case Management, offers strategies to help the courts take charge of the delivery of justice in response to the changing landscape in our courts.

In our previous blog, we explained that the 77 foundations survey respondents identified as being necessary for new lawyers immediately upon graduation from law school are consistent and definitive throughout the practice of law. The similarities we saw in responses across demographics, firm sizes, and practice-specific characteristics suggest that the findings can be employed with confidence by law schools, the profession, employers, and others to facilitate the development of crucial foundations needed by lawyers right out of law school. Nonetheless, there were a few notable practically significant differences that arose among the various practice settings we studied.

In Colorado, April 19, 2018, will forever be known as “The Conference of Chief Justices Day” thanks to an official proclamation by Governor John Hickenlooper. The proclamation was delivered at IAALS’ annual Rebuilding Justice Award Dinner by Doug Scrivner, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the University of Denver and IAALS Board of Advisors Member. The dinner centered around the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and honored and celebrated their leadership and work to improve America’s civil and family courts. The issue of declining confidence in the courts was the subject of another evening highlight: a fireside chat with several attending Chief Justices.

Greg and I have known one another for over thirty years. He was a new associate at Gibson Dunn during a period in my career when I was working with Gibson Dunn, primarily on water and oil and gas matters. Back then, Greg was green, and I was just a little less so. But, we overlapped for only a short time. I next encountered Greg primarily through his mother, who lived at the time in our neighborhood and rode her bike everywhere. We would see one another at the grocery store or on the street, and she would tell me about Greg’s career and about her other children as well. The Kerwin family is an extraordinary family.

It is inspiring to watch as more and more states begin to address access to justice issues within their own courts. Arizona has been a leader in taking up the Call to Action from the Conference of Chief Justices and is in the process of implementing reforms. Arizona’s Civil Justice Reform Committee issued its report and recommendations, A Call to Reform: The Committee on Civil Justice Reform’s Report to the Arizona Judicial Council, in October 2016. The Supreme Court reviewed those recommendations and issued a series of rule changes that will take effect July 1, 2018.

​At the end of last year, I posed the question: “was 2017 a year of change?” To which I answered, “yes . . . but not enough.” I challenged the legal industry in 2018 to make goals together and support one another so we can become more client-focused, affordable and truly show the value our legal system provides. Several have accepted the challenge, including an entity that’s been a leader in advancing the legal system since its inception: IAALS. One example of their collaborative leadership was co-hosting the “Better Access through Unbundling” conference with the ABA late last year, at which I had the pleasure of being a panelist.

The IAALS Court Compass project is exploring streamlined and simplified solutions that help people through the divorce and separation process. While the project aims to make the process better for all litigants, there is a particular focus on people who go to court without an attorney. The Court Compass project is employing a number of human-centered design tools, including in-person design sprints and other focus groups to test new processes and solutions in real time and refine them based on user feedback. IAALS and the Iowa Judicial Branch are partnering to bring a design sprint workshop to Des Moines later this month.

​Another online platform to help couples streamline the divorce process has entered the market. It’s Over Easy was founded by Laura Wasser, a well-known divorce attorney who handles high-stakes celebrity divorces. “Couples today date online and bank online,” Wasser said. “They don’t mind putting in their assets and liabilities into a computer. They’re do-it-yourselfers. If they can buy an espresso maker online, they can get divorced online.”

On Thursday, April 19, IAALS will present the Conference of Chief Justices with our highest honor: the Rebuilding Justice Award. We are thrilled that several Chief Justices from across the nation will attend and Ohio Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, President of the Conference of Chief Justices and chair of the National Center for State Courts Board of Directors, will accept the award.

Talking about civil justice reform only gets us so far. The key to change is taking concrete steps on the ground and implementing practical solutions. IAALS’ own Rebecca Love Kourlis and Brittany Kauffman authored a piece for the Corporate Counsel Business Journal’s Civil Justice Playbook that dives into this discussion and highlights ways IAALS is working with judges and courts to make that change a reality in the realm of discovery.

Walter is a man of many accomplishments, many firsts, many awards—none of which he ever mentions. Just to give a "flavor" (notice the food theme throughout) of some of them: graduation from high school at 16; first African American to become Student Body Vice President at the University of Denver; first African American to work for Tenneco Oil’s legal department and for Texas Instruments in Dallas, first to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas, first to head up the Environmental Protection Agency in Dallas; deputy Federal Highway Administrator in the Clinton administration and manager of Walmart’s Legal Department diversity initiatives. He has opened doors, opened minds, and led an extraordinarily distinguished career, including being President of the National Bar Association.

We are proud to present you with IAALS' 2017 Annual Report, showcasing our efforts to help create a legal system that works for everyone. The theme this year is “Action to Justice.” Throughout the report, you will see images that are straight out of the comics. But despite the whimsical tone, the real message is that we live in times that pose great challenges to our system of justice, and superheroes must answer the call to act.

Last year, IAALS and the National Center for State Courts released a new Roadmap for Implementation to guide state courts implementing civil justice reform efforts. IAALS and NCSC will ultimately work with one state from each region of the United States as it follows the Roadmap through implementation of civil justice reform. Idaho and Maine were previously announced as Roadmap states and we are excited to add Texas and Missouri to this list. I was fortunate to visit both states last month to support their reform efforts.

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.

​Some experts are predicting that a change in alimony rules under the new tax law passed late last year may increase the number of divorces this year. The new tax law changes the alimony deduction, which has been in place since 1942. Beginning in 2019, spouses who pay alimony won’t be permitted to take any deductions, and spouses receiving alimony won’t be required to report those payments as income.

In July 2016, IAALS published Foundations for Practice: The Whole Lawyer and the Character Quotient, which shared findings from a survey that asked more than 24,000 lawyers what new lawyers need as they enter the profession. In the survey, we also collected from respondents ten demographic and practice-specific characteristics. We thought we might observe interesting, informative, and actionable differences across these demographics and characteristics. However, as we conducted analysis of the survey data for our reports, it became clear that our expectation was misplaced.

FreeFrom, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, is releasing a self-help tool aimed at helping survivors of domestic abuse get the resources and information they need to pursue financial compensation. Many victims of domestic abuse never seek legal relief, simply because they don’t know what options they have or how to pursue them.