Publications

Utah's legal regulatory sandbox allows nontraditional legal service providers and business structures to enter the legal marketplace in an effort to close the justice gap. IAALS is conducting a robust evaluation throughout the pilot phase of the sandbox, and this report covers our findings related to the outcomes and intended impacts of the Sandbox, including the types of entities operating, the services provided, and the quality of those services.

This blueprint recognizes judges’ critical roles in rebuilding public confidence and modernizing our court systems, and provides a practical roadmap for judges to lead sustainable, people-centered change in their communities.

Utah's legal regulatory sandbox allows nontraditional legal service providers and business structures to enter the legal marketplace in an effort to close the justice gap. IAALS is conducting a robust evaluation throughout the pilot phase of the sandbox, and this report presents important background and contextual information along with an overview of the purpose and evaluative approaches used.

Utah's legal regulatory sandbox allows nontraditional legal service providers and business structures to enter the legal marketplace in an effort to close the justice gap. IAALS is conducting a robust evaluation throughout the pilot phase of the sandbox, and this report covers our evaluation questions, the methodological approaches we employed, and in-depth discussion of the findings from this component of the sandbox evaluation.

How AI might deliver legal services directly to the public is the subject of IAALS' recommendations. IAALS suggests a phased approach to regulating the use of AI. The first phase should pursue “soft power” approaches as we learn more about AI, followed by a second phase of exploring potential regulatory changes.

With over a decade of experience and seven states having implemented allied legal professional programs, the time is ripe for a concerted effort on reciprocity. This report present insights and outcomes from IAALS' convening on ALP reciprocity, including a framework for states on what to include in a reciprocity rule.

This report presents updated recommendations that should guide the future of judicial performance evaluation (JPE) in the United States. The recommendations are the culmination of extensive research, collaboration with JPE administrators and judges across the country, and consideration of evidence-based best practices to modernize JPE.

This report lays out a set of 12 recommendations drawn from recent regulatory innovation discussions, covering a range of areas including stakeholders to engage, program structure and requirements, messaging, and research and data.

This report details survey findings from judges across eight states, revealing their perspectives on judicial performance evaluation (JPE) processes in their states today, what is working well, and challenges with their programs.

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.

Stemming from our 2022 Community & Cooperation convening, this report distills key themes and recommendations for next steps aimed at bolstering existing regulatory innovation efforts and kickstarting new ones, and creating opportunities to engage new people and perspectives in the movement.

This report summarizes best practices for allied legal professional (ALP) programs, including 18 high-level recommendations, that can serve as a guide for states considering, implementing, or refining ALP programs.

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 examines why many states have begun to create a new tier of legal service providers who are not lawyers, and describes the similarities and differences between each program. The report is designed to be used as a resource for states interested in creating their own program to understand not only what other states’ programs consist of, but also the reasoning behind many of their decisions.

This report details the key discussion points from the Unbundled Legal Services in the New Normal conference, focusing on how the pandemic helped normalize digitization and the use of technology for legal service providers generally—and how to further advance unbundled legal services nationwide.

This white paper is a primer on the general purposes and history of judicial performance evaluation (JPE); the various evaluation criteria, tools, and procedures used in JPE programs; the varying perspectives on JPE; and issues in the realm of JPE warranting focused consideration going forward.

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.

This guide is for employers who want to improve their hiring practices—to improve quality, retention, and diversity—based on what IAALS has learned from the Foundations for Practice project. The guide is a set of principles and recommendations geared toward hiring candidates suited to excel at an organization— based on that organization’s practice, vision, goals, and needs—that can be adapted to the specific objectives and goals of different employers.

This instructional design guide is for educators who are interested in using what IAALS has learned from the Foundations for Practice project as a basis for learning outcomes and standards-based assessments. The guide uses a step-by-step approach to implement a Foundations-based instructional model in the university law classroom.