News & Updates

The call for cooperation in legal disputes is on its way to being enshrined within the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in a more meaningful way. Several years ago, the Sedona Conference®’s Cooperation Proclamation called for greater cooperation between litigants in dealing with discovery matters. The idea calls for attorneys not to compromise their duty to be zealous advocates, but to strive for balance with their other duty as an officer of the court.

Family court judges make significant decisions affecting our nation's families, yet these judges are often undervalued—even by their peers on the bench. And, there is insufficient acknowledgement of the broad expertise required to do the job well. A new IAALS publication aims to change this by drawing attention to the special knowledge, qualities, and skills that these judges need to be successful—and hopefully reprioritizing and revaluing their role in the legal system.

Courts in many countries have been striving to provide various services to help facilitate the increasing number of self-represented litigants who need their services—especially in family law cases. In Ontario, Canada, the National Self-Represented Litigants Project recently published An Open Letter to the Canadian Judiciary, meant to encourage a dialogue between self-represented litigants (SRLs) and judges, who may struggle at times to effectively assist SRLs in their courtrooms.

IAALS would like to congratulate Malia Reddick, Consultant to our Quality Judges Initiative, on being named recipient of the National Association of Women Judges’ Award of Appreciation. Malia has been very involved with the NAWJ’s Informed Voters—Fair Judges Project over the years, and is being recognized for her many contributions and overall efforts to advance this important nonpartisan civics education.

“Big dreams, hard work, and serendipity” are the words Judge Christine M. Arguello would use to describe how she achieved her professional successes as a lawyer and judge. But, she also acknowledges the help of various mentors and the support of academic institutions throughout her career. In order to help the next generation, Judge Arguello founded Law School - Si Se Puede, a pipeline program that advances inclusiveness in the legal profession.

On October 10, 2014, I will be in Albuquerque to attend and present at a seminar that will discuss the question: “Can Summary Jury Trials Revive a Declining Civil Jury System?” As part of our Rule One Initiative, we have gathered a lot of valuable information about short, summary, and expedited programs around the country. I encourage those who are interested in learning more about these programs to start with these materials.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to settle a conflict in lower federal and state courts regarding whether judicial candidates may personally solicit campaign contributions. The nation's highest court has not addressed the First Amendment rights of judicial candidates since 2002. Every state supreme court to address the constitutionality of these restrictions has upheld them, but federal courts of appeals have split on the issue.

Public opinion polls consistently show that voters know very little about judges and judicial candidates on the ballot and wish they had more information. Around the country, judicial branch entities, state bar associations, and other groups are working to change that. In the November judicial elections, voters in many states will have the benefit of objective assessments of the performance of incumbent judges, and in some instances, the qualifications of their challengers.

IAALS is pleased to announce the release of our final evaluation results for the Colorado Civil Access Pilot Project (CAPP), the state's experiment with new court procedures. As a whole, CAPP has succeeded in achieving many of its intended effects and the evaluation provides a rich source of information for rulemakers and decision-makers around the country.

Law Professor Cara Cunningham Warren has written a paper about "Achieving the American Bar Association's Pedagogy Mandate." In order for professors to meet with ABA expectations, they will have to come up with new approaches to assessing student learning—something that was recently discussed the 2014 Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference.

Earlier this month, Law Week Colorado published an article highlighting IAALS' report Choosing Judges: Judicial Nominating Commissions and the Selection of Supreme Court Justices. An outgrowth of the O’Connor Judicial Selection Plan, the report examines why judicial nominating commissions are established in the first place, how their structure and operation differ across the nation, and what some of the best practices might be in building public trust in the process.

A Netherlands company is headed to New York to establish a "divorce hotel." Couples with uncomplicated divorces can spend a weekend at the hotel to work through the process quickly with mediators and independent lawyers, with the goal of emerging with documentation that a judge can make final. The idea of alternatives to the traditional divorce process are not new in the United States, and continue to expand.

After reviewing the public comments, and making some changes in response, the Iowa Supreme Court has approved a new expedited civil action rule (ECA rule) and a package of new rules and amendments collectively referred to as “the discovery amendments.” The changes will take effect January 1, 2015, as Iowa weeks to “significantly reduce litigation time and cost, while increasing access to justice."

A recent article in The New York Times argues that divorced and never-married parents have, in a sense, lost their right to choose how they want to parent. While married parents get a level of discretion from the legal system, "[j]udges routinely decide where the children of divorced parents will attend school, worship and receive medical care." Why the difference in treatment between married parents and those who are divorcing or separating?

Last month, Suffolk University Law School, an Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Consortium school, hosted the first-ever "Hackcess to Justice" legal hackathon. The event was designed to bring together some of the best legal and technological minds to brainstorm and devise ways to improve access to justice using technology.

The outcome of governors' races in at least two states—Florida and Kansas—will have meaningful implications for those states' courts. Florida's next governor could have the opportunity to fill four of seven seats on the supreme court. In Kansas, the gubernatorial candidates have a fundamental area of disagreement involving how state supreme court justices should be chosen.

On Tuesday, September 16, the Judicial Conference of the United States forwarded the proposed rule amendments to the Supreme Court with the recommendation that they be adopted. The announcement recognized that these amendments represent “significant” proposals designed to promote the just, speedy, and inexpensive resolution of civil cases. The Supreme Court has until May 1, 2015 to consider the amendments.

This Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (September 18-20), I will be attending the 3rd Annual Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Conference, which will focus on "Accelerating Competency: Assessment in Legal Education." I'll be keeping you updated throughout each day with live tweets on conference happenings and discussions taking place—so even if you can't join us, you can follow along online using hashtag #ETLConference.

A recent ABA survey report found that self-help legal centers around the nation "are a vibrant and effective resource" to those they serve. Receiving responses from nearly half of those surveyed, the ABA found that self-help legal centers now serve approximately 3.7 million people each year and mostly provide legal service in the area of family law, including child support, domestic violence, and guardianships.

The Colorado Supreme Court has extended the Colorado Civil Access Pilot Project (CAPP) for another six months, through June 30, 2015. The pilot project, which was originally schedule to run through December 31, 2013, had already been extended for an additional year to provide the court with more data and a detailed evaluation of the pilot. IAALS' evaluation of CAPP is now complete, and we will be releasing a final report in the coming weeks.