Publications

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.

IAALS drafted this report coming out of its Forum for Understanding and Comment on the Federal Rules Amendments, which was held in December 2013. The Report provides additional background and a summary of the discussion.

IAALS and the American College of Trial Lawyers Task Force on Discovery and Civil Justice submitted comments on the proposed Federal Rule Amendments. The comment provides a summary of the pilot project and rules reform activity around the country, at both the state and federal level, as much of this activity parallels the current proposed amendments.

This report involved interviews with nearly 30 state and federal trial court judges, from diverse jurisdictions nationwide, who were identified as being outstanding and efficient case managers and documents their recommendations and key practices. In their own words, these judges share their strategies.

Recognizing that appellate Judicial Performance Evaluation programs have largely been patterned after programs for trial judges, IAALS offers recommendations and tools for evaluating the performance of appellate judges that are tailored to those judges’ unique role and responsibilities.

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.

In this report, we explore some of the elements for successfully creating and implementing new rules and processes. While the right answers will vary by jurisdiction, asking the right questions can help judges, attorneys, and court staff move from a great idea to real action on the ground.

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 March 2013, IAALS sponsored “An Uncommon Dialogue” about judicial selection. IAALS convened a diverse group of thirty legal experts for two days to share perspectives on essential attributes for judges and how to put judges with those attributes on the bench. This report describes the outcomes from that convening.

This white paper describes the premises and policies for the Honoring Families Initiative (HFI) at IAALS. The goal of the paper and, more broadly, of HFI’s projects, is to offer new models of service delivery in order to facilitate an informed national dialogue on how courts and communities can better meet the needs of parents and children that arise from the transitions of separation or divorce.

IAALS' Quality Judges Initiative's recommendations for reviewing written opinions as part of a performance evaluation program for appellate judges were featured in Trends in State Courts 2013, an annual publication of the National Center for State Courts.

Despite the number of cases processed in U.S. bankruptcy courts and their significance in the financial lives of individuals and businesses alike, very little is known about how the judges who preside over these courts come to be on the bench. IAALS undertook this project to address this deficiency—to shed light on the process for selecting bankruptcy judges.

In September 2012, 21 law schools sent representatives to Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers’ first conference. With the understanding that collaboration is at the heart of rich and effective teaching, the report represents the starting point of a shared dialogue among Consortium schools.

This report presents the results from an analysis of data from five pilot programs instituted from 2000 to 2002 in four different Colorado courts implementing proactive case management in family law cases. The data shows that proactive case management in family law cases provides substantial benefits for the litigants.

This Guide provides the tools for any interested federal judge to make a quick, initial assessment of the status of his or her civil case docket to measure how it compares to his or her colleagues, as well as to courts across the nation, with the goal of improving caseflow management in civil cases in the U.S. District Courts.

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.

During the ABA’s 2013 mid-year meeting, the Task Force on the Future of Legal Education heard testimony from individuals about opportunities to improve legal education. Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers took this opportunity to submit a comment focused on aligning legal education with the needs of an evolving profession. The comment had six main recommendations.

This report summarizes what IAALS learned through focus groups of judges and attorneys, which then provided the foundation for developing our model surveys and recommendations for reviewing written opinions of appellate judges.

This report, containing a docket analysis complemented by in-depth interviews, examines the Colorado experience to provide insight to jurisdictions around the country interested in streamlined pretrial procedures, case differentiation, and voluntary processes.

This collects recommendations for jurisdictions around the country that are considering implementing short, summary, or expedited trial program, as well as those seeking to improve their current programs. The recommendations "are meant to serve as a flexible roadmap for reform, with the details of each program to be determined at the local level."