IAALS has a deep and abiding interest in protecting the quality and integrity of the judiciary. With the assistance of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (Ret.), and based upon IAALS’ independent research and compilation of existing research, IAALS and Justice O’Connor have identified a model for judicial selection that we believe best balances the dual goals of impartiality and accountability.
This publication answers many common questions about the court systems and judges in the United States, such as why we have both state and federal courts and how the differ, what types of state courts there are, how a state judge reaches the bench, and what qualifications state judges have.
In 2011, the Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers initiative at IAALS conducted a survey, gathering data about new programs from 118 law schools. The survey intended to determine whether external factors were catalysts for institutional changes or whether schools acted following the Carnegie Report. This publication contains IAALS blog posts spanning four years, addressing the results and impact of the survey.
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.
