Guest Posts

How do I spend most of my time as a federal court district judge? The best part of my job is presiding at a trial with good trial lawyers. But unfortunately that does not happen as often as I would like both because there has been a decline in trials and, with that, a decline in lawyers who have trial experience.

According to news reports, a state district judge in Oklahoma agreed to resign following a petition describing numerous acts of misconduct. The case illustrates several aspects of state judicial discipline highlighted in a recent IAALS report.

IAALS’ recent report, Redefining Case Management, is an important update on the work being done in civil justice innovation and is a critical read for all. The report succinctly summarizes new insights that have been brought to the world of case management—along with charting the path that got us here.

​At the end of last year, I posed the question: “was 2017 a year of change?” To which I answered, “yes . . . but not enough.” I challenged the legal industry in 2018 to make goals together and support one another so we can become more client-focused, affordable and truly show the value our legal system provides. Several have accepted the challenge, including an entity that’s been a leader in advancing the legal system since its inception: IAALS. One example of their collaborative leadership was co-hosting the “Better Access through Unbundling” conference with the ABA late last year, at which I had the pleasure of being a panelist.

IAALS, in partnership with the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), continued its leadership on implementing Civil Justice Initiative reforms at a workshop held in Phoenix, Arizona, January 18-19. The program, The Nuts and Bolts of Civil Justice Reform, was co-sponsored by the NCSC and the Maricopa County Superior Court. Approximately 20 judges and court administrators participated, from Hawaii to Tennessee.

The theme of the 2017 ETL conference, “Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers… to Serve Tomorrow’s Clients,” captures perfectly the attitude that I have used for many years to frame my teaching. This year’s Ignite presentations put that theme into practice a myriad of concrete programs, in the classroom, the law clinic, and courthouse. Tech developers were represented. Law librarians. Producers of extracurricular activities. That diversity is precisely what legal education and the legal profession need. Here’s why.

At next month's Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Conference, we will spend Saturday morning in a Design Thinking workshop. It will be a hands-on way to learn what a design approach is, for you to use as an experiential teaching method or as a problem-solving process. When you hear the word “design,” you might assume this method is all about visuals, making things look nice, and choosing the best PowerPoint themes. Good visual design is important. But “Design Thinking” focuses not so much on visuals, as on solving problems in more human-centered and experimental ways. It's about understanding a challenge area from different stakeholders' perspectives, and then quickly building and testing new solutions to see which have the greatest promise.

This month, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and the American Bar Association Judicial Division released Building a Diverse Bench: Selecting Federal Magistrate and Bankruptcy Judges, a resource that offers practical steps the federal judiciary can take to promote a more diverse bench. A diverse bench is essential to an effective judiciary. A bench that reflects the diversity of the public it serves enhances public confidence in the role of the courts in our democracy, and provides role models for groups underrepresented in the legal profession. And diversity is more than symbolic—having broader perspectives on the bench produces a richer jurisprudence, incorporating a wider and more representative range of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives.

Do the methods by which states choose their appellate judges result in benches with different characteristics? A new study concludes that the most distinctive appellate benches are in "merit-confirmation" states, in which the governor's appointment power is constrained, perhaps substantially, by the required consent of a separately elected body.

My work on the classroom/traditional side has never needed empirical justification. By contrast, my work on the experiential side has always been met by skepticism by those who share my belief in the value of the classroom. Experiential education is not the status quo; it is always subject to demands for empirical evidence of its value.