Iaals Publications

It is no surprise that there is much confusion around how judges get to be judges in the United States. No two states use the same method to select and retain their judges, and even in individual states, the method may vary by the level of court and even location.

Our 24 Principles lay the foundation for achieving fundamental improvement of our system to help ensure that no one is shut out due to a lengthy and expensive process.

Over the last eight years, our impacts have been felt across the country. A critical component of our success lies in our approach to tackling the challenging issues we face.

Are law school graduates ready to enter the profession, engage in the practice, and serve clients? Many law schools have developed more robust experiential training in recent years. One such program is educating law students who are outperforming their colleagues in the field who have been licensed to practice law for up to two years, according to a study conducted by Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers.

In 2014, we have continued to see a rise in the number of, and interest in, alternative processes designed to provide a more streamlined approach to the pretrial and trial process. While these programs are known by many different names, they all focus on increasing access to our civil justice system. Given the number of programs that have been implemented nationwide, and their diversity, we have updated our chart of these programs, which catalogs their unique elements.

Family court judges make significant decisions affecting our nation's families, yet these judges are often undervalued—even by their peers on the bench. And, there is insufficient acknowledgement of the broad expertise required to do the job well. A new IAALS publication aims to change this by drawing attention to the special knowledge, qualities, and skills that these judges need to be successful—and hopefully reprioritizing and revaluing their role in the legal system.

IAALS is pleased to announce the release of our final evaluation results for the Colorado Civil Access Pilot Project (CAPP), the state's experiment with new court procedures. As a whole, CAPP has succeeded in achieving many of its intended effects and the evaluation provides a rich source of information for rulemakers and decision-makers around the country.

Over the last seven years, we have focused much of our time and effort on ways to improve the effectiveness of discovery, due in large part to the expanding world of electronically stored information. In our new report, we review the laws in the United States and other countries and provide examples of, and analogies to, various cost allocation models. One of the key takeaways is the importance of proportionality.

We are pleased to announce the release of a new report on the judicial nominating commissions used to select supreme court justices in 30 states and Washington, D.C. With Choosing Judges, we examine why judicial nominating commissions are established in the first place, how their structure and operation differ across the nation, and what some of the best practices might be in building public trust in the process.

In recent years, I have been distressed to see persistent efforts in some states to politicize the bench and the role of our judges. Working closely with IAALS and its Quality Judges Initiative, we have collaborated to promote processes for selecting and retaining state judges that inspire public trust in our courts and the integrity of their decisions. Today, I am pleased to share with you the O’Connor Judicial Selection Plan—our recommendations for protecting and strengthening the courts.