News & Updates

Thirty-three percent of supreme, appellate, and superior court judges are women—an increase of eight percent since 2002. This figure comes close to matching the percentage of Connecticut Bar Association members who are women—34 percent.

At IAALS, philanthropic support is essential to advancing our mission of building a more accessible, fair, and efficient legal system. To assist in these efforts, we recently welcomed Megan Loeb as our Assistant Director of Development, Foundations, and Sponsored Programs.

An important takeaway from the May 2010 Conference on Civil Litigation held at Duke University Law School, sponsored by the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, was that the disposition of civil actions in our federal courts could be improved by advancing early judicial case management. As a result, the package of amendments that grew out of the Duke Conference, and that went into effect on December 1 of this year, seek to promote sustained, active, hands-on judicial case management.

In Sanders County Republican Committee v. Bullock, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Montana law that restricted political parties from endorsing or contributing to judicial campaigns. The Atlantic reports their disfavor with the Ninth Circuit’s decision, maintaining the statute acted to “protect the integrity of [Montana’s] nonpartisan judicial elections” and “stood as a bulwark against the corroding effect of money's influence on judicial integrity.”

This week, the Denver Post published an article highlighting Denver’s new Center for Out-of-Court Divorce, which provides a child-focused, less-adversarial, and potentially less-costly approach for families when parents are separating.

Following public interviews of 18 applicants and private deliberations, the appellate judicial commission selected three nominees for possible appointment to the supreme court vacancy created by Justice Ray Price’s retirement. Three interviewees were women and one was a minority, with six from outside metropolitan areas. Governor Nixon must make the appointment within 60 days.

A recent study by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) is shedding new light on the demographics of state judiciaries across the country. The Gavel Gap project collected data based on the race, ethnicity, and gender of 10,000 sitting state court judges, and then analyzed how closely each state’s bench reflects its population.

Recognizing that there is widespread concern that the civil justice system is too complex, costs too much, and takes too long, a new report provides recommendations for designing short, summary, and expedited (“SSE”) programs and calls for implementation of such programs on a national scale. The report, A Return to Trials: Implementing Effective Short, Summary, and Expedited Civil Action Programs, is co-authored by IAALS, ABOTA, and the NCSC.

The Conference of Chief Justices has recognized the important needs of litigants in our state courts, and has answered the call to action to improve our civil justice system by adopting the Recommendations of its Civil Justice Improvements Committee earlier this month. 

A couple of years ago at Aspen, Margaret Marshall, who retired as Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2010, issued a chilling warning about how nations lose the rule of law. Marshall, who spent her early years in apartheid South Africa, said that when the rule of law goes, it does so “astonishingly quickly. The current election cycle brings to mind Marshall’s admonition, and in particular, the allegation that the “game is rigged”  leads again to considering the kind of corruption that campaign donations foster: The Citizens United Problem. The case has become a dog whistle on both sides. Progressive surrogates suggest that if only the case could be reversed, the flow of donations from corporations to political campaigns would cease, and with it corruption of the process. On the other side, conservatives caution that to cease the flow of funds would eviscerate the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. And guess what, both sides use the parade of horribles to—you got it—raise money.

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.

It has been just over a year since substantial changes were made to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, aimed at reducing the high costs and long delays faced by civil court litigants. And, this effort has not been limited to the federal courts. Many state-level changes have also been implemented across the country and Colorado has emerged as a leader by incorporating the federal amendments and making permanent many aspects of its Civil Access Pilot Project.

Two recent events have us reflecting on the reasons why it is important to collect and share data. At IAALS, we have concluded our final study of Colorado’s Simplified Procedure (Rule 16.1), which was enacted in 2004. In Texas, the Supreme Court has newly adopted a Rule for Expedited Actions (Rule 169). Both rules intend to provide a shorter, less expensive process for smaller cases. They also have aspects similar to various short, summary, and expedited civil action programs in place around the country.

Rebecca Love Kourlis, Executive Director of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) and retired Colorado Supreme Court justice, discusses Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers and the importance of innovation in legal education.

Washington State’s innovative Limited License Legal Technicians (LLLT) program was recently evaluated by the National Center for State Courts and found to be a well-designed program for expanding legal assistance. LLLTs are non-lawyers who are specially trained to provide certain kinds of legal assistance. And, unlike paralegals, LLLTs practice without having to be supervised by a lawyer. Becoming a LLLT requires an associate-level degree of at least 45 credits and an additional 15 credits in family law from an ABA-approved law school. In Washington, the training is provided by the University of Washington School of Law, with Gonzaga University School of Law professors helping to teach the courses.

On January 17, The University of Arkansas at Little Rock announced that Michael Hunter Schwartz had been appointed the new dean of the William H. Bowen School of Law. Schwartz is an Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers fellow, who has demonstrated a commitment to integrating practice-based learning and professionalism into the classroom. We thank Schwartz for his commitment to improving legal education and congratulate him on his much deserved appointment.

Newly elected president of the American Judges Association (AJA) and IAALS board member Judge Kevin Burke has launched a blog on behalf of the AJA.

Faced with rising numbers of people in poverty, funding deficiencies, and an increase in self-represented litigants in state courts, the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators unanimously passed Resolution 5, in July 2015, to address these issues directly and to reaffirm their commitment to meaningful justice for all.

Justice Pat Roggensack and Marquette University law professor Ed Fallone were the top two vote-getters in the February 19 primary election for a seat on Wisconsin’s supreme court, and they will compete in the April 2 general election.

IAALS board member Russell Wheeler was interviewed for this article, which focused on a federal judicial selection process in which President Obama has been slow to nominate and the Senate has been slow to confirm federal judges.