News & Updates

The Oregon Supreme Court has approved a program that will license individuals who aren’t lawyers to provide limited legal services in family law and landlord/tenant issues. This makes Oregon the fifth state in the country to enlist a new tier of legal professionals in the effort to provide more access to legal help.

In December, we began contacting state bar leaders across the country, asking them to send a survey to every lawyer in their state in an effort to get to the bottom of a seemingly simple inquiry: what are the foundations that entry-level lawyers need to practice law? With at least 31 states on board with the survey, we're getting data that identifies the foundations—skills, competencies, characteristics, traits—the profession thinks are needed. This is big—and not just for law schools.

The Republican candidate for attorney general voiced his support for moving to a federal system of selecting judges. Such a proposal passed a house committee in March and is under consideration in the senate judiciary committee.

The Colorado Supreme Court has approved a program to license a new tier of legal service providers, who will be able to practice in certain types of family law matters such as divorce, custody, and protection orders.  

Three years ago, we launched Law Jobs: By the Numbers, an interactive online tool that gives prospective law students the most transparent and complete law school employment rate information available.

Fourteen attorneys, including six court of appeals judges, applied to fill the vacancy created by Justice Andrew Hurwitz’s move to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Only four of the fourteen applicants are Democrats. Governor Brewer’s first two appointees to the five-member court were Republicans.

The election—and subsequent threats of impeachment—of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz has raised concerns about the politicization of the judiciary. These developments underscore the need for merit-based judicial selection to ensure impartiality and public trust in the judicial system.

On the occasion of his retirement, John Lande, now Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law and ETL Fellow, collected his advice to law students and lawyers in an essay entitled “My Last Lecture: More Unsolicited Advice for Future and Current Lawyers.”

IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver, is pleased to welcome Karen J. Mathis, past president of the American Bar Association, as its Associate Executive Director. In the new role, Mathis will oversee IAALS’ operations, including administration, fund development, finance, human resources, communications, and technology.

Colorado's Licensed Legal Paraprofessionals are poised to bridge the affordability gap and ease state court burdens, providing essential legal support to those who can't afford attorneys.

November 2015 is the 75th anniversary of the Missouri Plan, an innovative approach to selecting state judges intended to preserve their impartiality while holding them publicly accountable for their performance on the bench. First adopted by Missouri voters in 1940, this process is now used to select at least some judges in two-thirds of the states.

At its fall convention, the state Democratic Party nominated three women to run for supreme court seats in November. Two of the three candidates are challenging incumbent justices, while the third is running for an open seat.

IAALS has launched Pathways to Legal Licensure, a landmark empirical study examining multiple approaches to attorney licensure across the United States. The project will assess how different licensure pathways measure and uphold minimum competency in the legal profession.

John Moye, IAALS co-founder and Board of Advisors member, was recently honored with the coveted National Association of Secretaries of State Medallion Award. The award is given to an individual who helps NASS advance the causes of elections, civic…

The conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity launched a campaign to highlight the records of the three justices standing for retention in November. The campaign includes television ads criticizing a supreme court ruling that kept an Affordable Care Act-related measure off the 2010 ballot.

It has been my honor to participate in IAALS’ Quality Judges Initiative as a member of the O’Connor Advisory Committee. Much of my time serving as President of the American Bar Association in 2008-2009 was devoted to efforts to assure adequate funding for the judicial branch of government and to improve judicial selection in order to assure fair and impartial courts; service on Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s committee was a logical following step after my term as ABA President ended. As a member of the O’Connor Advisory Committee, I have seen firsthand how QJI brings focus to the national debate on judicial selection issues and challenges. We have members who give perspective to the issues from various diverse backgrounds in order to come up with workable recommendations on judicial selection and judicial performance evaluation.

Both gubernatorial candidates oppose Amendment 3, a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow governors to appoint a majority of the members of the appellate judicial commission and give governors four nominees, rather than three, to choose from in appointing appellate judges.

Last summer, the Washington State Bar Association held its first round of exams in a new Limited License Legal Technician program (LLLT) aimed at bridging the access to justice gap by allowing non-lawyers to provide legal advice and assistance in limited areas, like domestic relations/family law. Now, a recent article provides an update how the LLLT program is progressing in the state.

In 2004, challenger Will T. Scott defeated incumbent justice Janet Stumbo. In 2012, Stumbo is challenging Justice Scott to regain the seat. The judicial campaign conduct committee has labeled ads by both candidates misleading, with at least one ad appearing to be designed to appeal to racial prejudice.

As a current second-year law student at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, having the opportunity to attend the 5th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference last month felt a little bit like eavesdropping on my parents as they discussed what my brothers and I would be getting for Christmas.