News & Updates

From thirty-one applicants for an upcoming supreme court vacancy, the judicial nominating commission submitted the names of seven candidates for possible appointment to Governor Deal.

IAALS has released Unbundled Legal Services in the New Normal, a new report highlighting key takeaways from the national 2021 conference, as well as a new resource center to help consumers, lawyers, and courts get how-to information on promoting and utilizing unbundled legal services.

Mark your calendars! The 4th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference will take place October 1-3, 2015, in Denver, Colorado, and will center on our Foundations for Practice project. We will debut the results of our national study to participants and look to them to help us shape the lessons, recommendations, and next steps that will turn the results into action.

As a result of a split vote on the issue by the supreme court, Justice Michael Gableman will not be required to recuse himself from cases involving a law firm that provided him with free legal representation in an ethics case in 2010.

Legal Aid of North Carolina is set to launch Innovation Lab, which aims to improve access to justice through technology integration, data collection, and collaboration. The Lab reflects a broader movement towards transformative approaches in the legal sector that emphasize evidence-based innovation and improved service delivery.

Nationwide, IAALS is succeeding in improving the American legal system with innovative approaches to daunting challenges. But, we don’t do it alone. We work each day in collaboration with the very best minds in the country to research issues, generate ideas, and implement solutions that will have the most impact for the most people.

The outcome of a supreme court race has led some to question the role of ethnicity in judicial elections. Incumbent justice Steve Gonzalez’s opponent did not raise money or campaign but still garnered 42 percent of the vote. Observers note that voters who lack information about judicial candidates often cast their votes based on race, sex, and other factors unrelated to qualifications.

To say that Sandra Day O’Connor fundamentally changed the legal landscape for good is really only a beginning, not a summation, of the contributions she made. To my mind, her deepest value came in the simple doing of things and doing them in an authentic and straightforward way that forged a new path forward.

With the leadership of Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a coalition of groups in Ohio has launched a new website—Judicial Votes Count—to better educate voters in judicial elections. The site offers information about the structure of the Ohio court system and the role of judges in that system, as well as details about how to vote in Ohio.

A trial judge dismissed a lawsuit seeking to remove three supreme court justices from the November retention ballot, ruling that the two Florida voters who filed the suit lack standing. With the assistance of the Southeast Legal Foundation, the voters claimed that the justices violated state law by using court employees to assist in filing campaign documents.

The IAALS Alli Gerkman Legal Visionary Award recognizes innovators who have made significant impacts early in their legal careers toward making the American legal system work better for everyone. The nomination window for the 2025 award is now open.

As the legal world is focused on the newly implemented amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which went into effect December 1st, there is one group that is already thinking “what next?”—the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. At the…

The U.S. Senate voted to approve, by an 89-1 vote, Stephanie Rose as a U.S. district court judge. To date, President Obama has appointed 72 women to the federal bench, which is the most ever appointed by a president in a single term. Rose is the first woman to serve on the Southern District of Iowa.

On Constitution Day, when the tendency is to wax poetic regarding the historic significance of our Constitution, we must be reminded of this living framework and its provision of both rights and responsibilities. We all have a role in ensuring the continued strength of our democracy.

Last month, MSN released a ranking of the best and worst states (including D.C.) for getting a low-cost divorce, based on a survey conducted by GOBankingRates. The ranking takes into account factors like court filing fees, average hourly attorney…

NPR recently interviewed IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis about the impact anti-retention campaigns - such as the one launched against Iowa Justice David Wiggins - has on the judiciary.  Kourlis said efforts by groups to oust judges solely for disagreeable decisions have opened up  a whole new debate over how states select judges.

There is lots of talk about making changes in legal education at law schools. That's no surprise, law professors love to talk. If they loved practicing law, they'd be lawyers. Instead, ensconced in the ivory tower, safe from the perils of the real world, they leisurely debate what should happen to those poor souls (law students) who must leave the hallowed halls of law school, and actually go out in the world to practice law.

The state chamber plans to publicize its recently completed ratings of supreme court justices standing for retention, based on their rulings in business cases.

Our Foundations for Practice survey set out to define what new lawyers are lacking. After working with state bar organizations to distribute the survey across the country, we are sitting on more than 24,000 responses from lawyers in all 50 states. Today, we are releasing two exciting outcomes from the survey.

The Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Initiative at IAALS is pleased to announce the addition of a new, innovative course to its growing list of course portfolios. International Business Negotiations is taught by Jay Gary Finkelstein and Daniel D. Bradlow at the American University Washington College of Law. The course is a semester-long simulated negotiation of an international business transaction offered to upper level JD and LL.M. students.