Last call for volunteers on five section councils

Thanks to everyone who has applied for ISBA committees and section councils. All committees and all but five of the section councils have received a sufficient number of candidates to fill the vacant positions. The sections of eCommerce, Elder Law, Health Law, Intellectual Property Law and Workers’ Compensation still need applicants.

If you put off applying for a position on one of the ISBA’s section councils and you are a member of any of the five sections mentioned above, you still have a chance to get your application in. President-elect Cindy Moser will be making appointments to all committees and section councils beginning Friday morning. To be considered, please fill out the application form by tomorrow (Thursday) noon.

Applying is easy. Simply click on “Section Councils,” or go to the ISBA’s home page and click on “Section Councils” at the top of the center column. You can access a description of the sections that interest you by clicking on “Member Groups” on the ISBA website, then on “Sections” in the drop down box, and finally on the specific section.

Can you spare a couple of hours to judge mock trial?

Five regional high school mock trial competitions remain before the state tournament. John Wheeler, director of the ISBA’s Center for Law and Civic Education, needs judges and attorneys to judge the competitions.

Each regional competition consists of three rounds – 8:30 and 11 a.m., and 1:30 p.m. In each of the rounds, two teams argue a case as prosecution and defense based on weeks of preparation and practice leading up to the competitions. Judges knowledgeable about the law are needed to evaluate how well the attorneys present their arguments and how well the witnesses present their testimony. Winners of the regional competitions advance to the state tournament to be held this year from March 28-29 in Des Moines.

A list of the regional competitions is below. You can also go to the high school mock trial page on the ISBA’s website for details about this year’s case and information about being a judge.

Upcoming competitions:
Mason City @ NIACC - March 8
Marshalltown @ Iowa Valley CC – March 13
Council Bluffs @ Mid America Center – March 15
Burlington @ Des Moines County Courthouse – March 17
Waterloo @ Five Sullivan Bros. Convention Center - March 21

Reminder about Bench-Bar Conference

Bench-Bar Committee co-chairs Justice Thomas Waterman and ISBA Past President Joel Greer are hard at work preparing the agenda for the upcoming Bench-Bar Conference May 2-4 at the Inn at Okoboji. Please put the date on your calendar, if you haven’t already, and look forward to a fun, but informational, experience in Iowa’s Great Lakes.

Details will be announced in this newsletter as they become available.

AJS conference call tomorrow on judicial nominating commission study

The American Judicature Society (AJS) will hold a conference call at noon (CST) tomorrow (March 8) to discuss the findings of its newly released report on current judicial merit selection systems. Rachel Paine Caufield, author of the report, and AJS Executive Director Seth Anderson will be on the call.

The report is based on the results of a survey of judicial nominating commissions. It is the first survey since 1994 to assess these bodies charged with the task of selecting nominees for judicial positions.

A link to the full report, which will be available at 8 a.m. (CST) tomorrow, and the toll-free number to dial to participate in the conference call are available in this AJS release.

District 5A and 5C judge positions open

Two district court judge positions are open due to the retirement of Judge Darrell Goodhue in District 5A and Judge Don C. Nickerson in District 5C.

Application deadline for the 5C position is Monday, March 12. Deadline for the District 5A position is Monday, March 26.

Details on requirements for applying for the 5C position are available here. Application details for the 5A position can be found here.

Judge Scieszinski featured in March ABA Journal

Iowa’s own Judge Annette Scieszinski is quoted and photographed in an article in the March 2012 issue of the ABA Journal.

The article entitled: “Show Me the Money: States, ABA Try to Figure Out When Campaign Cash Leads to a Judge’s Recusal,” uses the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Caperton v. Massey to address the issue of campaign contributions on a judge’s impartiality. It contrasts the Caperton case with the U.S. Supreme Court decision six months later in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which opened the door “for corporations and unions to spend as much as they want to support or defeat candidates.”

Judge Scieszinski is quoted in response to the question of who replaces a judge who might have a conflict in a case if there aren’t enough judges to carry out the workload. “At any given time, I’m the only judge available in the courthouse,” she says, referring to the situation in her district where six judges cover a 10-county territory.

Read the entire article here.

March issue of Iowa Lawyer available online and via app

You can read the March 2012 issue of the Iowa Lawyer online and on the iPhone and iPad through a free app if you’d like to see it before the printed copy arrives in the mail scheduled for the end of this week.

The ISBA began offering the online magazine in a “flip page” format beginning with the May 2011 issue. The format allows you to flip the pages the same as you would with the printed copy. The format also allows you to download a pdf of a single page or any combination of pages, as well as the entire magazine. In addition, you can search by keyword in a single issue or all of the archived issues.

The app for the iPhone and iPad allows you to download the magazine to your devices and read it wherever you are without a need for a connection to the internet.

If you would like to be notified when each new issue is posted online and via the app, please send an e-mail to sboeckman@iowabar.org requesting that you be added to the notification list. If you would like to download the free Iowa Lawyer app, click here.

Update on Rural Practice Committee’s summer clerkship program

Approximately 40 1L and 2L students from Creighton University, the University of Iowa and the University of South Dakota have expressed their interest in the ISBA’s Rural Practice Committee’s summer clerkship program. The challenge now is to find enough rural attorneys who are willing to hire these students for approximately 10 weeks this summer, says Phil Garland, chair of the Rural Practice Committee.

According to Phil, approximately 20 rural attorneys have contacted him indicating a willingness to take on a student for the summer. He would like to place at least 30 of the students, so he is actively recruiting solo and small-firm practitioners in rural areas. In particular, he is looking for attorneys in the Iowa City area, he says.

The ISBA’s summer clerkship program, the first of its kind in the nation as far as can be determined, was conceived by the committee as a way for students to get a taste of practice in rural areas, and to give attorneys in rural areas a chance to look at possible hires as they contemplate enlarging their practices or slowing down and eventually retiring. The goal is to reduce the frustration rural attorneys often face when they hire an associate, pour thousands of dollars and hours of time into training that person, then lose it all when the associate leaves.

By giving the students a chance to see what a rural practice entails and what living in a rural community is like a year or two before they graduate, the hope is to increase the chances that they will stay with a practice when hired permanently. At the same time, the program gives attorneys an extra pair of hands for the summer to handle some of the more mundane aspects of the law practice at a minimal investment, thus allowing them to devote time to more complex -- and ideally more profitable -- legal issues, and/or to enjoy additional leisure time.

If you would like to participate in the program or learn more about it, please contact Phil at garlandlawfirm@gmail.com, or by phone at 641-923-3792.

Rural Practice Committee meetings with Creighton law students

A week ago Monday, Phil Garland along with ISBA Executive Director Dwight Dinkla and Communications Director Steve Boeckman met with Creighton University 1L and 2L students regarding the Rural Practice Committee’s summer clerkship program. The meeting was part of a daylong focus on rural practice organized by Prof. Nancy Lawler Dickhute, director of professional relations for Creighton, and Karen Dixon in Creighton’s law school placement office.

Phil spoke with a group of students at a 7 a.m. breakfast, at a 9 a.m. Trusts and Estates class and at a noon luncheon. In between, he conducted one-on-one interviews with about 15 of the students. Altogether 22 Creighton students with an interest in exploring rural practice have submitted their resumes.

“It’s encouraging to see this many students expressing an interest in perhaps practicing in rural areas,” the co-chair of the ISBA’s Rural Practice Committee says. “If even a small percentage of them end up moving into rural practices after they graduate, Iowa’s legal profession will be well served.”

Click here to see photos of the day’s activities.