News & Updates

The North Carolina Justice for All Project is suing the state over restrictions on providing legal advice, aiming to establish nonlawyers' right to offer limited services and spark reform discussions for a fairer legal system.

Nearly 110 years ago, Roscoe Pound proclaimed: “Dissatisfaction with the administration of justice is as old as the law itself.” In 2015, that sentiment endures and is echoed in the mounting call for real, meaningful change in our civil justice…

With two vacancies on the supreme court, Chief Justice Rabner is assigning two intermediate appellate court judges to the supreme court as of October 1. The court has been operating with six members since Justice Long retired in March, and a lower court judge who has been serving temporarily reaches mandatory retirement age next month.

Lifetime tenure has been the source of controversy in recent years, and fixed, 18-year terms have become the most frequently proposed alternative.

In this short presentation from October’s Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference, I talk about preliminary outcomes of Suffolk’s innovation curriculum. The innovation curriculum consists of courses in legal technology, practice management, and the delivery of legal services that form the basis of Suffolk’s concentration in legal technology and innovation and Accelerator to Practice Program. I

A circuit court judge rejected a challenge to the ballot summary for a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the governor to name an additional member of the commission that nominates potential appellate judges and increase the required number of nominees from three to four.

Toward the end of last year when I first read IAALS’ report, Change the Culture, Change the System: Top 10 Cultural Shifts Needed to Create the Courts of Tomorrow, I had feelings of both trepidation and hope. It said a lot of things I have often thought about, but have not always spoken up about.

Critics of Justice Stephen David’s majority opinion in a 2011 Fourth Amendment case are challenging his bid for retention. The decision rejected the “Your home is your castle” doctrine as a defense to violent acts against law enforcement personnel. Justice Robert Rucker is also standing for retention, but he dissented in the case.

For separating and divorcing families, access to justice can be hard to come by. Our traditional, court-driven model de-emphasizes parents’ (and children’s) long-term interests, fosters expensive legal fees, and lacks important services that can help families reorganize in a well-rounded way. But, in a recent article for the ABA’s Dispute Resolution Magazine, Denver’s pioneering Center for Out-of-Court Divorce (COCD) is discussed as a bright new future for the process—one that centers on problem solving and holistic outcomes.

On November 6th, Arizona citizens will be voting on Proposition 115, which aims to modify Arizona's merit selection system by giving the governor more power over the judicial nomination process. Justice Ruth V. McGregor and Judge James A. Soto warn against this ballot proposition, stating that it will "undermine the present merit-selection system for selecting judges and let politicians control the judicial selection process."

The results of our Foundations for Practice study continue to reverberate throughout law schools and the legal profession, and the concepts of “The Whole Lawyer and the Character Quotient” are being covered in the press as well.

Congratulations to Professor Howard Markman, member of the Honoring Families Initiative Advisory Committee, for receiving the University of Denver's John Evans Professorship Award.

Reporter Haley Cohen of The Economist recently toured the Center for Out-of-Court Divorce (COCD) in Denver and wrote about her experience in a December article titled Disruptive Innovation: A spate of start-ups offer alternatives to traditional divorce. We’re delighted to see the COCD attract international media attention because its innovative model for separating and divorcing families deserves the exposure.

The campaign for a seat on Louisiana’s supreme court has taken a negative turn, with the Democratic candidate sponsoring an ad attacking Republican Jeff Hughes’ record as a trial court judge.

With this post, Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers begins a series of reports on legal education: the what, who, and how of innovation. These reports will document the range of current innovations in the areas of curriculum, teaching and learning, faculty, and assessment. They will draw on a number of sources of data, including the American Bar Association/Law School Admissions Council (ABA/LSAC) Official Guide, but the primary source will be the results of Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers’ new survey of innovations currently underway.

Now that a simple majority of votes suffice to confirm a Supreme Court Justice, each party will invariably put forward the most ideologically-extreme candidates that they can. No more moderates, no more coalition-builders, no more impartial judges. Rather, the Court could be populated, over time, by judges who have partisan instincts or agendas—maybe even by judges who have a particular alignment with the president who nominates them.

In response to anticipated legislative proposals to alter the process for selecting the state’s appellate judges, with the most prominent being the discontinuance of the judicial nominating commission and the addition of senate confirmation, the Kansas Bar Association endorsed a plan to restructure the nominating commission.

Doug Buttrey, executive director of Tennesseans for Economic Growth, lauded Tennessee for enacting civil justice reform but cautioned that its plan to make Tennessee the number one state in job creation and retention can't stop there. He urged Tennessee, which uses commission-based gubernatorial appointment for its Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, and Court of Criminal Appeals, to keep its current system.

Late last week, tens of thousands of Polish citizens took to the streets—and citizens around the world took to social media—to protest three legislative proposals that would severely impair the independence of Poland’s judiciary and weaken the Rule of Law in the country. Protesters used the hashtag #wolnesady, or "free courts,” to mark their efforts.

The University of Denver has announced the award recipients for its Annual Founders Day Gala, and we are proud to announce that IAALS Associate Executive Director Karen J. Mathis is among them. Karen, a 1972 graduate of the University, will be honored with the Community Service Award, which she will accept at the Gala on March 7.