Announcements

Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers announces a newly expanded and integrated collection of online legal education resources. These innovative teaching tools give law schools and professors the means to reevaluate classes and curriculum from the ground up, and are designed to help law schools ensure that their students are prepared for the demands of an evolving profession.

Recently, the Civil Rules Advisory Committee held the first of three hearings on the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In an effort to provide input and offer comments with a fresh perspective, IAALS is hosting A Forum for Understanding and Comment on the Proposed Federal Rules Amendments in Denver, Colorado on December 5-6, 2013 for a small group of stakeholders from around the country.

Appellate judges in 38 states stand for election. But how much do we know about them? Are they fair? Do they write opinions that parties can understand? Are they doing a good job? With only a fraction of states providing such information about appellate judges, very few voters have what they need to make an informed and responsible decision at the ballot box. We at IAALS are working to change that with our newest publication.

Over the past few years, IAALS has been tracking the Colorado Civil Access Pilot Project, along with numerous other rules projects across the country. These efforts are aimed at providing greater access to civil justice and at better achieving the goals of a just, speedy, and inexpensive civil justice system. This new publication explores various factors for the successful creation and implementation of new rules and processes, laying the groundwork for future developments.

As many have recognized, electronic discovery has arrived in the state courts. While there are abundant resources available on the topic of e-discovery, for many judges the question is, “Where to begin?” To answer that question, IAALS now offers this new toolkit for state court judges, which pulls together some of the best resources available. Whether you are an expert or a novice with e-discovery issues, this collection of resources will be useful in your cases.

Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers announces its second annual conference, which will focus on connecting the profession and the academy to ensure that law graduates are prepared to begin a career of service to clients, service to the legal system, and service to society. Conference participants will focus on how to design and deliver a modern legal education that educates lawyers to the highest standards of competence and professionalism.

The new Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families at the University of Denver is open for business. Media buzz around the first-of-its-kind Center, based on the model developed by IAALS, continues to grow. Listen to the interview with Rebecca Love Kourlis and Melinda Taylor.

Part of what we do at IAALS is to convene people who have different viewpoints around a particular topic—in hopes that areas of consensus will emerge from the dialogue. We convened one such group last spring, comprised of ideologically and experientially diverse participants, on the subject of judicial selection and the attributes we want in our judges. Focused on a simple question, "What are the most important characteristics or qualities of a judge," there was remarkable unanimity around the room.

Effective July 1, 2013, two current IAALS managers stepped up to lead their respective divisions. Corina Gerety has assumed the role of Director of Research and Brittany Kauffman is now Director of the Rule One Initiative. The IAALS Research Department supports all substantive initiative areas as needed, providing a broad range of research assistance. The Rule One Initiative serves to advance empirically informed models for court processes and procedures that provide greater accessibility, efficiency, and accountability in the civil justice system.

IAALS is pleased to announce that it is welcoming a new Director of Communications and Marketing and a new Director of its national legal education initiative. Alli Gerkman took the helm as the first full-time director of Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers in May. She joined IAALS in 2011 and has served as its Director of Communications since August 2012. Taking her place as Director of Communications and Marketing on July 29 is Robert Thompson, who comes to IAALS after many years of nonprofit service.