News & Updates

After a standoff over judicial appointments brought senate business to a halt, lieutenant governor and 2013 gubernatorial candidate Bill Bolling called for the creation of a bipartisan judicial selection commission. (Virginia is one of two states where the legislature appoints judges.) As a result of the November 2011 elections, the senate is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans.

Small and mid-size business owners struggle with access to justice issues just as individuals do, with real ramifications for their businesses and their communities. Through the US Justice Needs project, IAALS will be surveying businesses, from small to large, so that we can better understand justice needs from their perspective. 

IAALS is happy to welcome Colorado Court of Appeals Chief Judge Janice B. Davidson (Ret.) as she takes on her role as Senior Advisor at IAALS. Chief Judge Davidson will be involved with all of IAALS’ initiatives to some extent, but will focus her time primarily on the Quality Judges Initiative, beginning in January 2014.

The Task Force appointed by the Texas Supreme Court to recommend rules to promote “the prompt, efficient, and cost-effective resolution of civil actions” in response to H.B. 274 was unable to come to an agreement about whether the process should be mandatory for cases under $100,000 or merely voluntary. As a result, the Task Force submitted two separate sets of rules. 

In January, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts' Family Court Review published an article highlighting the key takeaways, proposals, and results from last spring's Plain and Simple: Making the Legal System Accessible to All conference. The conference was directed at the immense need for plain language and simplification reform efforts, and was co-sponsored by IAALS.

Republican state legislators have proposed a bill that would increase the size of, and allow the governor to appoint a majority of members to, the Alaska Judicial Council. The AJC serves as both the judicial nominating commission and the judicial performance evaluation commission. Under the new bill, the AJC would be expanded to 16 members, and the change would require amending the constitution.

A bill that would have expanded the governor’s authority over the state’s judicial nominating commissions stalled after disagreement between the house and senate over whether the governor’s proposed authority to remove and replace commission members at will should extend to appointees of past governors.

Professional ethics rules have long prevented judges from speaking about their rulings and opinions. However, beginning next month, California state judges will be able to comment directly on pending cases—their own or those of a judicial colleague—in connection with a judicial election or recall campaign. 

As an interdisciplinary team, the students at the Resource Center provide services to families going through separation and divorce that they cannot get anywhere else. The comprehensive suite of services provided wouldn’t be possible for any one of us to offer singlehandedly. However, when we put our heads together, so to speak, we have the ability to help families go through the entire process, beginning to end, from all angles.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan recently joined Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the honorary chair of our O'Connor Advisory Committee, at the Newseum to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Justice O'Connor's first term on the Court.

Courts across the country have made giant strides in the use of technology in the wake of COVID-19. The Conference of Chief Justices and Conference of State Court Administrators are urging state court officials to continue this momentum, and they have recommended six principles related to courts’ use of technology going forward.

On June 5, Alli Gerkman, Director of Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers, appeared on Colorado Public Radio to talk about efforts being made on a national scale to change legal education and how Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers is leading the way. During the interview, Gerkman discusses the need to bridge the gap between law schools and the profession and the opportunity to forge a better path forward.

Washington & Lee law professor and Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Fellow Jim Moliterno recently presented at Pepperdine Law Review Symposium on “The Lawyer of the Future.” Moliterno also discussed his school's innovative third year curricula, including tracks for both litigation and transactional immersion.

IAALS has announced that Utah Supreme Court Justice Deno Himonas and Utah attorney John Lund are the recipients of the organization’s 2021 Rebuilding Justice Award. IAALS is proud to recognize the achievements of Himonas and Lund for their efforts in founding Utah’s Office of Legal Services Innovation.

There have been a few new resources made available for separating or divorcing families in the United Kingdom, including a website that provides information for families, a collection of legal expertise and advice in legal areas, and a guide for parents who wish to separate cooperatively.

The May 2012 edition of the Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers newsletter is now available. Sign up for this and other IAALS newsletters here.

IAALS and HiiL have completed the first nationwide survey of its size to measure how Americans across a broad range of socio-demographic groups experience and resolve their legal problems. The full US Justice Needs report with the survey results will be released on September 1, with two live webinars presenting the data, reporting on the outcomes, and suggesting solutions.

Discovery in the United States is much more broad than other common law countries. While such differences in approach pose challenges in terms of cross-border discovery, our recent report, Allocating the Costs of Discovery: Lessons Learned at Home and Abroad, highlights the lessons to be learned for those at home by looking to more reasonable and proportionate discovery methods used abroad.

Professor Brian Tamanaha, who authored Failing Law Schools, penned an op-ed for the New York Times on the debt and joblessness of recent law school graduates and points to two culprits: American Bar Association accreditation standards and the federal…

The challenges we face continue to upend our lives. But we cannot go back, so instead we must forge a better future. Our work in 2021, as described in our Annual Report, has moved the needle and opened new doors for those in need of justice.