Rebecca Love Kourlis

In a recent op-ed, IAALS Founding Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch commend recent legal regulatory reforms in Utah and Arizona and call for more states across the country to make similar bold changes.

After 13 years of growing IAALS from a fledgling idea to a nationally recognized force for change and evolution on the legal landscape, Rebecca Love Kourlis will retire from her role as Executive Director in September. The Chancellor of the University of Denver, Rebecca Chopp, and the Executive Committee of IAALS have opted to fill Kourlis’ formidable shoes with another national leader, Scott Bales, who recently announced he will step down as Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court.

Judge Neil Gorsuch’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week underscored the difference between elected officials and judges. He repeatedly declined to answer questions about his personal views, declined to express his opinion of various precedents, and repeatedly swore to uphold the law, irrespective of the parties before him.

On Saturday, IAALS Executive Director and former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis delivered the commencement address to the 2016 graduates of the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver. Approximately 240 law students heard Becky unveil what it is new lawyers need to succeed, based on research findings from IAALS' Foundations for Practice project.

In February, IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis gave the keynote address for the Denton Darrington Annual Lecture on Law and Government in Boise. Speaking on “Building the Just, Speedy, and Inexpensive Civil Courts of Tomorrow: Why We Cannot Afford to Fail,” Kourlis emphasized the importance of a robust and responsive civil justice system, and the need for reform.

The League of Women Voters of Colorado is recognizing IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis with its 2015 Leader of Democracy Award on June 17. I can't think of a more appropriate recipient of this award than Becky. The LWV is a national, nonpartisan political organization that has fought since 1920 to improve our systems of government—something that Becky has also been working toward her entire career.

Law Week Colorado recently published an article covering IAALS’ preliminary report on the Colorado Civil Access Pilot Project (CAPP). On April 7, IAALS published its first findings on the project from collected docket and survey data. The Law Week article features interviews with IAALS Executive Director and former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis and IAALS Director of Research Corina Gerety.

IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis was interviewed recently on Divorce Source Radio, a resource for individuals and families going through divorce. According to Kourlis, the challenge for IAALS and others is to explore how we can “create a system that would nurture people through it to the extent possible . . . while still achieving the separation of legal rights and responsibilities that are associated with divorce.”

The Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association dedicated its Winter 2014 publication to the Judiciary. As part of the WTLA’s review of the bench, IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis wrote an article about one way that Wyoming can enhance its selection and retention process, by conducting judicial performance evaluations.

In a recent article, Law Week Colorado covered IAALS' newest publication, Working Smarter, Not Harder: How Excellent Judges Manage Cases. The article features interviews with IAALS Executive Director and former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis and 4th Judicial District Judge David Prince, one of the judges who was featured in Working Smarter.