News & Updates

The Minnesota Supreme Court has ordered a hearing for October 30, 2012 to consider comments submitted in response to select portions of the Minnesota Supreme Court Civil Justice Reform Task Force’s Final Report dated December 23, 2011 and its Supplemental Report dated May 22, 2012.

Justice Alito's recusal controversy highlights the urgent need for clear judicial recusal procedures. IAALS' recommendations strive to boost transparency, efficiency, and trust in our judiciary.

Honoring Families recently convened a diverse cross-section of the national family law bar, with the goal of identifying and discussing improvements to the system that would allow all practitioners to better serve clients and children. The Family Bar Summit: Shaping the System for the Families We Serve challenged participants to shed preconceived notions about the system and engage in forward-thinking discussion on various aspects of the family justice system.

Chief Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia warns that the federal judiciary will be at risk if Congress cannot reach a budget deal to prevent the implementation of $600 billion in automatic spending cuts. While civil trials before judges without juries would likely be unaffected, Chief Judge Sentelle states federal civil jury trials would possibly be suspended due to lack of funding to pay jurors and that budget cuts would affect the probation system and payment for public defenders.

The legal controversies surrounding many of the current administration's policy initiatives have included calls to impeach judges who have ruled against the government, and defenders of the judiciary frequently have characterized these events as attacks on the rule of law.

Are the days of retainers and hourly rate billing for legal services over? Probably not, but Avvo, Inc., may be leading the industry in this direction with a new, fixed-fee billing model. Through Avvo Legal Services (ALS), users are connected with a…

A group known as the Oklahoma Civil Justice Council released ratings of supreme court justices based on how they have ruled in civil liability cases. Four justices are standing for retention in November.

It is hard to believe it has been seven months since our 4th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference last fall, where we presented initial results from our Foundations for Practice survey. Since that gathering, we have heard from countless legal educators who are embarking on the process to define and measure learning outcomes—and who are using Foundations for Practice to inform that process.

In their September issue, Law Week Colorado discusses the problems with the current civil justice system and the on-going efforts by states to facilitate “just, speedy and inexpensive” litigation. Referencing dialogue from IAALS’ Third Civil Justice Reform Summit, the article describes the states' implementation of civil procedure pilot projects, intended to improve state systems by limiting discovery proportionally to what is needed.

In a recent article, Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Fellow John Lande breaks down the results of a creative session held at the American Bar Association’s Section on Dispute Resolution Conference earlier this year. The session (and article) borrows its message from hockey great Wayne Gretzky, who said he always tried to skate “where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

Four justices who served with former chief justice Roy Moore are among 10 current and former justices of both parties who have endorsed his opponent in Moore’s bid to be chief justice again. He was removed from the court in 2003 for ignoring a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments display from the state judicial building.

When significant amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect last December, we celebrated this important achievement but also stressed that how the rules were implemented would be key to seeing a positive impact. The importance of how the amendments are being implemented has not been lost on the bench and bar. In fact, it has been the focus of 2016.

Governor Rick Perry appointed his chief of staff to fill a supreme court vacancy created by Justice Dale Wainwright’s September resignation. Governor Perry has a history of appointing close advisors to top state positions including seats on the high court.

Last year, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts dedicated his 2015 year-end report on the State of the Judiciary to extolling the new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. He noted the amendments serve as an important stride forward…

Denver Law alumni James “Jim” Mulligan (JD ’74) and Joan Burleson (JD ’85) made a $2.25 million endowment to the University of Denver Sturm College of Law's Mulligan Burleson Chair in Modern Learning, which will ensure experimental learning is integrated throughout the school's curriculum. This gift is augmented by IAALS's Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers advisory committee member, Doug Scrivner (JD ’77) and his wife, Mary.

IAALS board member Karen J. Mathis was among five women to receive the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award. The Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, established in 1991, honors outstanding women lawyers who have achieved professional excellence in their area of specialty and have actively paved the way to success for others. 

In an article published earlier this month, Law Week Colorado covered the new roadmap for civil justice reform developed by IAALS and the National Center for State Courts (NCSC). The two organizations announced their "Roadmap for Implementation" in May, on the heels of the Conference of Chief Justice (CCJ)'s recommendations for increasing efficiency and effectiveness. IAALS will work with five jurisdictions to implement and test the roadmap, and IAALS and NCSC will provide guidance and support along the way, as they have throughout the CCJ Civil Justice Improvements project process.

Today, numerous pilot projects are in various stages of consideration and implementation around the country, with proportionality in discovery a key theme among projects. In his recent article “Proportionality: The key to reducing corporation e-discovery costs,” Philip Favro recognizes this common theme and notes that “several circuit and district courts have recently championed proportionality as a benchmark for decreasing e-discovery costs.”

Jordan Furlong, who writes often on the future of the legal profession, has turned his pen on law schools. In the article, he laments the current state of legal education, but cites a number of initiatives undertaken by legal educators to address this, including Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers.

A recent study conducted for Voices for Civil Justice, with support from the Public Welfare Foundation, found that voters strongly favor reform of the civil justice system. Overwhelming majorities of voters believe it is important to “ensure that everyone has access to the civil justice system” and “strongly support a wide range of services to enhance access.” Moreover, voters support increasing state funding to build a more accessible civil justice system. The survey highlights that equal justice under the law in our society is fundamental, with voters considering it a right, not a privilege.