Published in conjunction with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), this report evaluates the cost and delays of litigation from a new perspective: that of financial experts. The report offers five recommendations to maximize both the effectiveness of financial experts and efficiency of their use in the civil pretrial process.
This article examines the ways in which familial distress surrounding separation and divorce can affect individual employee productivity and negatively impact a business' bottom line. This article further outlines some improvements that are being implemented or considered in various jurisdictions.
While electronic discovery continues to pose challenges for the civil justice system, the judge who understands e-discovery may be uniquely positioned to guide the litigation in a way that works better for all litigants—and for the court itself. In this Second Edition, IAALS provides an updated manual for state court judges and anyone who needs a basic resource on e-discovery.
This study assesses whether, as some claim, there is empirical evidence that women and minority judges are evaluated less favorably than their Caucasian male colleagues. We consider whether these differences are the result of implicit biases, and we offer recommendations for minimizing the potential that such biases may come into play.
This publication couples the desired attributes for court systems and individual judges identified by participants in the IAALS Roundtable on Judicial Selection with principles (or “cornerstones”) for judicial selection processes that are most likely to produce court systems and judges with these attributes.
In response to the need for an impartial, efficient, and meaningful method for evaluating appellate opinions as part of the JPE process, IAALS developed this report containing broad recommendations, and model criteria and questionnaires.
IAALS developed a set of goals to pursue and principles to follow in the selection, composition, and operation of judicial nominating commissions. Rather than constituting a “one size fits all” prescription, these goals and principles offer a framework within which to establish a commission-based gubernatorial appointment process tailored to individual states.
IAALS administered a survey of appellate judges and justices in eight of the eleven states that have official appellate JPE processes. Drawing from these survey results, conference materials, and participant dialogue, this post-conference report discusses the various approaches currently in place for evaluating appellate judges and justices, and identifies themes, recommendations, and areas for future work in appellate JPE.
Authors Rebecca Love Kourlis and Dirk Olin tell the story of a civil justice system that has become alarmingly expensive, politicized, and time-consuming, degrading it to the point that it no longer meets the legitimate needs of the people it was created to serve.
This report describes the committees in place and their significant variations in membership, appointment process, and, to the degree possible, operations. It suggests why senators and their staffs might consider using a committee, outlines decisions they might face in structuring and appointing a committee, and identifies issues they and committee members might encounter in operating a committee.
This publication synthesizes the results of four recent studies exploring how attorneys and trial judges across the nation view the civil justice system. Survey respondents overwhelmingly agreed that cost is a concern; delay increases cost; and discovery is responsible for unnecessary cost and delay. Respondents also embraced the need for creative solutions and experimentation.
In this keynote address, IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis describes the ambivalence to skyrocketing costs, unprofessional gamesmanship, and long delays in civil litigation a decade ago, and the legal profession's cynicism about our inability to alter any of those factors. However, all that has changed.
This survey asked state and federal judges questions about the civil legal system, and in particular, some of the civil process reforms advanced by IAALS and the American College of Trial Lawyers Task Force on Discovery and Civil Justice.
Colorado’s voluntary simplified pretrial procedure for actions seeking $100,000 or less from any one party was set up to reduce the time to disposition and reduce costs for litigants. But our survey shows use of the rules is relatively infrequent and not widely promoted by responding attorneys and judges.
The final installment of a three-part series that gives courts willing to try pilot projects a means for empirical evaluation of civil rules reforms and how they should be measured.
