News & Updates

On August 15, 2013, the public comment period opened on the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This package of amendments represents the culmination of several years of work on the part of the Civil Rules Advisory Committee, with the end goal of streamlining the pre-trial process, and particularly discovery, so as to achieve a “just, speedy, and inexpensive” process. The public comment period will run through February 15, 2014.

The Seventh Circuit Electronic Discovery Pilot Program Committee, which for many years has been at the forefront of efforts to reduce the cost and burden of electronic discovery consistent with the goals of Rule 1, now provides another important resource for practitioners and judges everywhere. The Committee, which is currently engaged in Phase 3 of the Pilot Program, has developed a Model Discovery Plan and Case Management Order (CMO) relating to privileged documents.

Ann Roan, State Training Director for the Colorado Public Defender's Office, advocates for more practical skills education within law school classrooms in order to ease the transition into the high stakes environment of the courtroom. In her Voices from the Field interview, Roan suggests recalibrating the instructional emphasis between doctrine and practice in a way that allows students to actually apply what they learn. Underscoring the importance of balancing doctrinal and experiential learning, Roan believes “You have to know the rules of the game before you can excel in the skills of the game.”

This summer, the Brooklyn Family Court Child Support Study hopes to improve the quality of legal assistance to self-represented litigants in child custody proceedings. Observers will track whether magistrates explain to self-represented litigants the reason for the hearings, explain the courtroom proceedings, and/or exhibit irritation with the litigants. Then, the observers will follow up with the litigants in a brief interview to discern whether the litigants found the proceeding to be fair and whether they understood what took place in the courtroom.

The ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education released its Working Paper late last week. If you have been following the discussions, you’ve heard about the current landscape of legal education and you may not find many surprises in this precursor to the final report. But here’s what is surprising: everyone seems to agree that the Task Force is on the right track. The Working Paper describes initiatives that can facilitate change, and cites our Consortium of law schools as a promising example. And our 2nd Annual Conference focuses on three key highlights from the Working Paper.

Early tomorrow morning, I’m heading to San Francisco through Sunday for the ABA’s Annual Meeting. You may see me at meetings for the Law School Division, the Young Lawyers Division, the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, and the Task Force on the Future of Legal Education. If you’ll be in San Francisco and you’re interested in linking up to hear more about Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers or just to talk about legal education, please drop me a line: agerkman@du.edu

Adequate training is vital in preparing judicial officers for the challenges of being on the bench. While this is true regardless of docket type, judicial education/training is especially important for domestic relations matters. The Honoring Families Initiative is undertaking research on how domestic relations training for judicial officers is provided in states across the country, and we would love to hear from you.

IAALS is pleased to announce that it is welcoming a new Director of Communications and Marketing and a new Director of its national legal education initiative. Alli Gerkman took the helm as the first full-time director of Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers in May. She joined IAALS in 2011 and has served as its Director of Communications since August 2012. Taking her place as Director of Communications and Marketing on July 29 is Robert Thompson, who comes to IAALS after many years of nonprofit service.

The North Carolina legislature sent to Governor McCrory for approval a bill that would revamp the state's elections, including eliminating public financing for appellate judicial elections. Created in 2002 by the Judicial Campaign Reform Act, the so-called "Voter-Owned Elections" program allowed candidates with qualifying contributions to receive a public grant to finance their campaigns and eliminated the need to seek campaign support from attorneys and others who may later appear before them in court.

Recently, speculation has surfaced about whether judicial selection and tenure will be addressed at a special legislative session in Oklahoma, called by Governor Fallin. Although a Republican legislator wrote a letter warning judges around the state of rumors that there would be efforts to impose term limits and to eliminate the judicial nominating commission, a spokesman for the governor offered assurances that the only topic for the special session is lawsuit reform.

Richard Gabriel recently penned an article for CNN following the conclusion of the George Zimmerman trial, in which he referenced several reports that examine potential biases in the justice system. Among them was IAALS’ Leveling the Playing Field: Gender, Ethnicity, and Judicial Performance Evaluation, which explores whether there is evidence that implicit biases enter into evaluations of judges’ performances.

IAALS is pleased to welcome Barbara Blackwell as its Senior Development Director. In this role, Blackwell will be responsible for developing and implementing a strategic fundraising plan for IAALS’ short and long-term sustainability. Blackwell joins IAALS after a 25-year career in fundraising for nonprofits and higher education institutions.

On September 17, 2013, IAALS and the Byron R. White Center are bringing United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (ret.) to Colorado to deliver the 3rd Annual John Paul Stevens Lecture. The Stevens Lecture brings a well-known jurist to the University of Colorado Law School each year. Registration for the lecture is now open, and can be accessed online.

Federal judges in the Southern District of New York are currently evaluating a pilot project, known as the SDNY Pilot § 1983 Plan, that defines how cases alleging false arrest, excessive force, or malicious prosecution are handled against the NYPD. While the project was instituted to address concerns regarding the increasing number of § 1983 cases being filed, and the increasing length of time to bring those cases to disposition, the Court’s request for feedback has resulted in a critical response by the plaintiffs’ bar.

In Minnesota, a broad-based group known as the Coalition for Impartial Justice, which includes more than 30 business, labor, religious, citizen, and legal groups, is working to implement the 2007 recommendations of the Quie Commission. The commission was unanimous in calling for the adoption of a "merit selection" process for judges and a performance evaluation program, with a majority of the commission favoring retention elections for subsequent terms.

A recent study shows that divorce in early childhood has an impact on the relationship that children have with their parents at a young age and continuing after adolescence. The study analyzed two surveys, which revealed that children of divorce were more likely than others to view their relationships with their parents as “unreliable." Those behind the study suggest that these findings help place the way individuals trust and rely on others in the context of their childhood experiences.

We are happy to introduce our newly published textbook, Negotiating Business Transactions: An Extended Simulations Course. The textbook accompanies our transactional law and practical skills course, International Business Negotiations, which has been adopted by nine law schools. The textbook is the first book designed to facilitate the adoption of an extended transactional simulation course using experiential learning and collaborative teaching pedagogy.

In April, the Arizona legislature passed and the governor signed a bill directing the state's judicial nominating commissions to submit the names of at least five finalists for each judicial vacancy. Last week, four members of the appellate judicial nominating commission filed a petition with the state supreme court to declare the new law unconstitutional. The law is in apparent conflict with a constitutional provision calling for the commission to submit at least three names.

A group of twenty teenagers in the United Kingdom who have been affected by separation or divorce are banding together to create a service that will help teens cope with divorce. The website will provide mentoring and support to children between the ages of twelve and sixteen who are experiencing difficulty due to changing family dynamics. And, the support and mentoring services will be provided to the teens by other young people.

If the current law school model is dilapidated, then it requires real structural and architectural changes. Legal education (finally) must cater to the needs of students and teaching them the knowledge, skills, and values required to serve clients. However, to reinvent legal education in a meaningful way, law schools must involve and elevate their former second-class citizens on the faculty, who already teach, and have long taught, in the way that would represent real change in law schools.