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Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director The Obama administration’s efforts to diversify the federal judiciary continue.  Nancy Torresen, the first female judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, was formally sworn into office on May 3, …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director Frank Bowman guest blogs on Concurring Opinions and offers some thoughts on how law schools outside the top 30 can sustain themselves while meeting the needs of their students. His suggestions?  Reverse the trend toward …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director The newly minted Stanford Journal of Complex Litigation launches this Fall. The SJCL will cover topics like aggregate litigation, rules of civil procedure, mass torts, jurisdictional disputes, complex litigation reform, …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director The senate approved a bill that would alter the process for nominating appellate judges. The judge member of the appellate judicial commission would be replaced by a gubernatorial appointee. The four commission members …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director As of mid-April, the three supreme court justices standing for retention in November had each raised between $156,000 and $160,000 for their retention effort, most of which came from lawyers and law firms. Committees …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director In the context of retention opposition campaigns against three supreme court justices, the Florida Bar, the American Bar Association, and the League of Women Voters of Florida launched a “The Vote’s in Your Court” …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director An effort to impose seven-year term limits on judges failed to pass the house and is dead for this legislative session. New Hampshire is one of three states where judges serve for life, or to a mandatory retirement age …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director Of the races on the ballot in the May Democratic primary elections, the two supreme court races are the most expensive so far , with the six candidates having spent $1.4 million. None of the Democratic candidates opted …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director Professor Ben Madison explores how students develop their “professional identities,” –as recommended by the Carnegie report—through journaling assignments.  Journals, he observes,  help students appreciate the need for …

Bill Sullivan Senior Scholar, Center for Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, Wabash College The Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers survey, carried out last year, provides an unparalleled overview of what is happening in legal education today, giving an update of the …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director The California bar’s task force is set to issue recommendations in December 2013 regarding whether to impose a practical skills training requirement on lawyers applying for admission.  Whether the country’s largest bar …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director The University of California Hastings College announced that it will reduce enrollment by 20% over the next three years. "The critics of legal education are right," Dean Frank Wu said in a telephone interview on April …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director The governor asked a judicial nominating commission to submit the name of more than one candidate for a district court judgeship for which only four attorneys applied. All four applicants—two Republicans and two …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director Despite an earlier agreement to move forward with Senate confirmation of judicial nominees, Senator Al Franken and others report that the process remains acrimonious. Nearly one in 10 seats on the federal bench are …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director A judicial selection task force made seven recommendations and offered draft legislation to improve the process for selecting supreme court justices. Recommendations including nominating candidates in open primaries …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director The senate approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the governor to appoint appellate judges with legislative confirmation. The proposal would give the general assembly sixty days to act on a …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director The senate passed a bill that would make the Tennessee Plan—which calls for merit selection, retention elections, and performance evaluation of appellate judges—constitutional. If the measure is approved by the house, …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director Numbers may prevent a disciplinary complaint against Justice David Prosser from going any further. Prosser formally requested that two justices recuse themselves from consideration of the complaint against him, and he …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director A Republican legislator called for an investigation into whether three supreme court justices violated state election law in using court employees to help file their retention candidacy paperwork. The justices learned …

Alli Gerkman Former Senior Director The three supreme court justices standing for retention in November share major campaign contributors with Fair Districts Now, an organization that supported redistricting amendments considered by the court in February. …