Publications

IAALS' Paths to Justice summit series explored the paths of the pandemic, the paths to access, and the paths to racial justice that our system must walk in our new normal. The issue papers from the summit continue to have strong relevance, and are published here with clear themes as guideposts to improve our justice system.

In this report, IAALS explores a longer-term view of civil filings in our state courts and provides additional insights into the specific role that courts have played in resolving cases, how that role might be changing, and the factors that are expected to continue to influence the filing of cases in our state court system going forward.

In this report from the Civil Justice Initiative, the Texas Office of Court Administration, the National Center for State Courts, and IAALS found that rules adopted by the Supreme Court of Texas in 2012 have expedited the resolution of cases—both before and after the pandemic.

This report provides nationwide data on the justice needs that people in the United States experience every day and a deeper understanding of how people in the United States resolve those justice needs, as well as what is working and what isn’t, to inform and help target reform efforts.

These Initial Discovery Protocols provide a new pretrial procedure that aims to reduce conflict and cost and to help businesses and insurers reach quick resolution during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether it be in settlement, motions practice, or trial. They are designed to be implemented by trial judges, lawyers, and litigants in state and federal courts.

This report provides a compilation of case studies from four states—Idaho, Maine, Missouri, and Texas—that used our roadmap to help implement broad civil justice reform recommendations. In it we share lessons learned from each state's experiences, which can provide other states with tangible experiences on which to draw when initiating their own efforts.

Americans are drowning in debt, and many find themselves as defendants in consumer debt collection cases filed in state courts. This white paper on consumer debt collection was developed to provide guidance to state court policymakers on managing different types of debt collection cases, given the growing caseload and recognition of existing gaps in effective case management in our courts.

These Initial Discovery Protocols for First-Party Insurance Property Damage Cases Arising from Disasters provide a new pretrial procedure for cases involving first-party insurance property damage claims arising from man-made or natural disasters. They are designed to be implemented by trial judges, lawyers, and litigants in state and federal courts.

Judges and attorneys from across the country point to dispositive motions as a critical area for reform. When used appropriately, these motions can make civil litigation more efficient; but when they are filed reflexively, and are not thoughtfully managed or timely ruled upon by the court, they inject additional cost and delay into court systems across the country. This report calls for a new paradigm for motion practice in the United States.

IAALS has focused on understanding the current motions landscape and issuing recommendations for improvement. This report is intended to spark a national conversation about the current challenges of summary judgment, a process by which the court can rule on a portion or all of the issues in a case without proceeding to trial.

Despite the recent focus on case management, and the literature and experience on the ground that all pointed to the importance of case management decades ago, it is still not the norm. This report recognizes that case management is essential for judges, courts, attorneys, and—most importantly—the litigants.

In February 2016, IAALS hosted its Fourth Civil Justice Reform Summit with the goal of charting the next steps for creating the just, speedy, and inexpensive courts of tomorrow. This report summarizes the discussion at the Summit and captures current efforts toward reform, challenges of implementation, and specific proposals that were shared.

The research on culture change, and legal culture in particular, suggests that culture change for the legal system is an uphill battle. While we have a clear challenge ahead, that does not mean that it is impossible. We propose ten cultural shifts for the purpose of promoting that national dialogue.

In this article for the Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy, IAALS highlights the critical next step needed beyond rule changes: culture change. Judges and attorneys alike have a responsibility to ensure that the system functions well, for the sake of clients, courts, and the profession. This article outlines those responsibilities and ways to achieve that goal.

Understanding how the courts and rulemakers have addressed the costs of discovery, including their allocation between the parties, provides important background and context for future recommendations. This report reviews the laws in the United States and other countries and provides examples of, and analogies to, various cost allocation models.

This publication provides a synthesis of the relevant empirical research on the civil justice process released from 2008 to 2013. In addition to IAALS research, it contains studies conducted by a variety of organizations and individuals, including the Federal Judicial Center, the National Center for State Courts, the RAND Corporation, and others.

In response to increasing pressures on the civil justice system, both at the state and federal level, many jurisdictions around the country have implemented an alternative process that is designed to provide litigants with speedy and less expensive access to civil trials. This summary chart outlines various programs nationwide and their unique elements.

This toolkit collects some of the best resources for state court judges, ranging from judicial primers to model orders to the best glossaries. For both judges and attorneys alike, this toolkit serves as a starting point for learning about electronic discovery, learning what is happening in state courts around the country, and learning from others through model orders and guidelines.

In this article we explore the history of recent efforts to improve the civil justice system in the United States, beginning first with the efforts of IAALS and the American College of Trial Lawyers Task Force on Discovery and Civil Justice, which culminated in a Final Report that proposed twenty-nine Principles containing broad ideas to improve the civil justice system.