A Summary of the Short, Summary, and Expedited Civil Action Programs Around the Country

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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… MORE

A Roadmap for Action

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The implementation of recent civil rules projects, which are aimed at better achieving the goals of a just, speedy, and inexpensive civil justice system, has revealed important considerations for any effort to change… MORE

Unlocking E-Discovery: A Toolkit for Judges in State Courts Across the Nation

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In 2012, IAALS published the second edition of Navigating the Hazards of E-Discovery: A Manual for Judges in State Courts Across the Nation, which serves as a manual for state court judges and anyone who needs a basic resource that includes the… MORE

An Uncommon Dialogue: What Do We Want in Our Judges & How Do We Get There?

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In March 2013, IAALS sponsored “An Uncommon Dialogue” about judicial selection. IAALS convened a 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… MORE

Courts and Communities Helping Families in Transition Arising from Separation or Divorce

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This white paper describes the premises and policies for the Honoring Families Initiative (HFI). The goal of the paper and, more broadly, of HFI’s projects, is to offer new models of service delivery in order to… MORE

An Informed Opinion: Direct Opinion Review and Appellate JPE

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The 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… MORE

A Credit to the Courts: The Selection, Appointment, and Reappointment Process for Bankruptcy Judges

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The U.S. bankruptcy courts have 351 authorized bankruptcy judgeships, along with an additional 37 retired-recalled bankruptcy judges. Despite the number of cases processed in these high-volume courts and their significance in the financial lives of… MORE

Family Law in Focus

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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 purpose of the study was not to compare… MORE

A Roadmap for Review

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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… MORE

The American Civil Justice System: From Recommendations to Reform in the 21st Century

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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… MORE