News & Updates

Administering justice in the time of COVID-19 has taken on a whole new direction in a rural municipal court in Laramie, Wyoming. After the governor declared a state of emergency, we developed a plan to temporarily delay any in-court personal appearances and began utilizing videoconferencing to facilitate necessary court functions.

Recently, Natalie Knowlton and I provided an update to the Colorado legal community on the Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families at the University of Denver—a model with national implications. The Resource Center was developed by the Honoring Families Initiative as an out-of-court alternative for families. I encourage readers to become familiar with our program and the impact we have had to-date.

A proposal to establish seven-year renewable terms for judges, who now enjoy life tenure to age 70, received majority support in the house of representatives but did not get the three-fifths vote required for a constitutional amendment.

Unauthorized practice of law rules grant lawyers a monopoly on providing legal advice and prevent “nonlawyers” from providing any meaningful legal assistance. This mindset codified in the UPL rules, along with our country’s staggering racial wealth gap, have a chilling effect on Black Americans' access to the legal system.

In 2010, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania established an E-Discovery Special Masters Pilot Program with the goal of developing an approved list of special masters to assist with monitoring electronic discovery compliance, narrowing and facilitating resolution of e-discovery disputes, and providing reports and recommendations to the judge, as necessary. A recent article from Law Technology News highlights the successes of the program.

The state legislature approved a new judicial discipline system, calling for replacing the existing disciplinary body—the court on the judiciary—with an entity known as the board of judicial conduct. The ten judge members will be appointed by judicial organizations, rather than by the state bar and the supreme court, and the six non-judge members will be chosen by the governor and the speakers of the house and senate.

IAALS has launched a new award to recognize innovators who have made significant impacts early in their legal careers toward making the American legal system work better for everyone who needs it and everyone who is a part of it: the Alli Gerkman Legal Visionary Award.

Developed as part of the “Informed Voters – Fair Judges” project, a voter education effort led by the National Association of Women Judges, a short film featuring retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has received an Emmy Award in the Public Service Announcement category from the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

In their latest podcast, Law Schooled, a student forum blog on law school reform asks the following questions: Should law students have a say in legal education reform? Why should law students have a say in their education when elementary and high…

The future of our justice system will depend on a new model for leadership among the judiciary, including proactive engagement of the issues, multidisciplinary approach to solutions, innovative and creative thinking, data-informed policy making, and the courage and vision to get ahead of problems and explore new solutions—all directed towards being responsive as possible to the needs of the people.

In May, we launched Foundations for Practice, an ambitious project that will study the foundations entry-level lawyers need to launch successful careers, identify models of legal education to get us there, and develop hiring tools to help employers better match their needs with their hiring practices. This summer we also added a new member to the ETL team. Kevin Keyes is joining us as a Project Manager, working with us and our many partners on the first phase of the project.

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…

Our data from the US Justice Needs project draws from more than 10,000 surveyed individuals and illuminates the contours of the justice crisis in America—revealing that, while certain groups are disproportionately impacted by justice issues, no socio-demographic group is untouched.

Last week, IAALS met with the other members and staff of the Conference of Chief Justices Civil Justice Improvements committee for its second plenary meeting in Washington D.C. The meeting was followed by the National Center for State Court’s Judicial Excellence Events, and culminated in an award ceremony where Chief Justice John Roberts presented the William Rehnquist Award to Kansas Judge Steve Leben, a close friend of IAALS, at the Supreme Court.

IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis, a graduate of Stanford University and Stanford Law School (BA '73, JD '76), was recently profiled in the Stanford Lawyer. The article takes a look at her career, including her years on the bench and her decision to leave the bench to found IAALS.

Last week, IAALS gathered with our partners and friends for our 14th Annual Rebuilding Justice Award Dinner. We were thrilled to welcome people back in person after three years to celebrate this year’s honorees, as well as recognize our collective efforts to build a more accessible, fair, and efficient civil justice system.

Social and mainstream media is abuzz with coverage of a recent segment on HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, in which Oliver skewers judicial elections. With clips of campaign ads that range from the absurd to the appalling, and extreme examples of the tactics some judicial candidates have used to garner campaign contributions, Oliver shines a hilarious but no less accurate light on the "horrifying spectacle" of judicial elections.

After the governor failed to make a judicial appointment within the 30 day limit, the judicial selection commission made the appointment from its list of well-qualified nominees. The governor had selected the same nominee, but he was two days late in doing so.

Allied legal professional programs have the potential to diversify the legal services market and create more cost-effective legal service models, and they should be created as an important part of a broader legal service ecosystem.

The 2015 Annual Meeting of The Association of American Law School (AALS), entitled Legal Education at the Crossroads, provided much discussion around the critical choices facing law schools. Alli Gerkman, Director of Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers, was…