News & Updates

The House of Delegates gathering at the American Bar Association's Midyear Meeting in New Orleans covered court funding, civics education, attacks on judges who make unpopular decisions, and other challenges in the system and the profession.

The February 2012 edition of Selection Snapshots is now available.

Though he believes he has enough votes to move the proposal out of committee, a Republican legislator agreed to postpone until the end of the session consideration of his bill calling for popular election of all judges. In January, the Republican governor, senate speaker, and house speaker jointly proposed a constitutional amendment establishing merit selection for appellate judges.

This article provides an overview of the Seventh Circuit Electronic Discovery Pilot Program, which IAALS tracks as part of its Rule One Initiative, and discusses the program's potential to have an impact beyond the Seventh Circuit.

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. 

U.S. Senator and possible 2015 gubernatorial candidate David Vitter urged the state legislature to examine the current process for choosing judges—i.e., partisan elections—and consider moving to merit selection.

In an article recapping the hearing before a House Judiciary panel on the growing costs of discovery, Eileen Malloy cites Rebecca Love Kourlis' testimony several times

Sofia Adrogué, partner at Looper, Reed & McGraw, and Caroline Baker, a state district judge for more than 14 years, predict that e-discovery will continue to loom large in 2012. With continued reliance on e-discovery forecasted, activity, and debate…

In his State of the Union address, President Obama called for judicial nominees to get an up-or-down vote after 90 days, regardless of whether they could overcome a filibuster.

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.

Justice Michael Gableman rejected requests that he recuse himself from three cases involving a law firm that defended him for free against an ethics violation charge. Gableman noted that justices should recuse  themselves only when they believe they cannot act impartially or when it might appear that they cannot do so.

Harvard's new Initiative for Learning and Teaching recently kicked off with a conference focused on teaching and learning, including demonstrations of innovative teaching methods.

The latest edition of Rule One Review is now available. Rule One Review is a quarterly newsletter that shares information about pilot projects and other civil rules projects being monitored by the Rule One Initiative. Sign up for Rule One Review and…

A proposal to amend the constitution to establish merit selection and retention for appellate judges and justices met with support and opposition from both Republicans and Democrats in the legislature. The proposal would make constitutional a selection system that is currently statutory.

The three candidates competing to be the Republican candidate for chief justice of the supreme court raised nearly $150,000 in January for the March primary campaign.

On the new blog, The Legal Whiteboard, Bill Henderson highlights an article on legal education reform written by an adjunct professor. Henderson: Law professors rarely engage with these critiques; to acknowledge these critiques, some might argue, is…

The National Law Journal has compiled a special report of articles focused on costs of e-discovery, including this piece featuring IAALS' executive director Rebecca Love Kourlis.

Beth Tomerlin took Professor David Thomson's Discovery Practicum while still a student at University of Denver Sturm College of Law. In an article for the Denver Bar Association Docket, she discusses the class and how it prepared her for practice.

According to campaign finance records, two trial court judges made $100 contributions to an anti-abortion PAC after hearing cases involving abortion-related issues. The two judges serve in Sedgwick County, where judges are chosen in partisan elections, and are up for reelection this fall.

Penny Pether is a Professor of law at Villanova University School of Law, where she teaches constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, law and literature, criminal law, and criminal procedure. In her Voices from the Field interview, Pether gives several suggestions for how the American legal education system can mirror some examples from her native Australia.