The Supreme Court of New Mexico, with generous assistance from SJI, has convened a committee dedicated to the development of an alternative, supervised-practice means of licensure that focuses on a skills-based assessment of a bar applicant’s legal abilities. The National Center for State Courts, as contractor on the project, assisted the committee by gathering information about similar models in other states and surveying local interested persons so that the qualifications and requirements of the program fit the needs of New Mexico. The committee expects to provide a final report to the New Mexico Supreme Court this spring.
While a two-day written examination has been used for decades, new reports questioning its efficacy in assessing a bar applicant’s readiness to practice law prompted the New Mexico Supreme Court to explore additional means of admitting attorneys to the practice.
Under the program, candidates must graduate from an accredited law school and will receive a conditional license to practice law upon acceptance. Candidates then work with a supervisor to submit regular work product for review by the Board of Bar Examiners to determine the candidate’s competence to practice. A candidate proves their practice readiness with actual legal work product and may begin working and earning a paycheck much sooner. For supervisors, this program will provide a pool of candidates who are able to practice upon graduation while also giving rural practitioners a new recruitment tool to encourage attorneys to practice in different parts of the state.
July 1, 2022
Juvenile court judges are the most important public figures in the juvenile justice system–their decisions impact whether hundreds of thousands of youth each year become court involved and for how long, whether they are involuntarily removed from their homes and communities, and the services they receive. Despite the importance of these judges, states and locales …
June 1, 2022
Each county in Mississippi contains its own Justice Court where community members bring legal actions to settle local, small-dollar disputes. Court regulations and policies vary in each county, and they can be incredibly confusing for Mississippians to navigate, almost all of which are pro se litigants. The COVID-19 pandemic created more variation as judges and …
May 2, 2022
Participating in the judicial system can be traumatic and stressful. Mediation is a tool used for resolving many judicial matters, thus mediators often encounter disputants experiencing the worst time of their lives. With this in mind, Texas Dispute Resolution System™ (TDRS) began a process to enhance their mediators’ skills and knowledge when engaging disputants during …
April 1, 2022
The State Justice Institute awarded a key grant to the District of Columbia Courts’ Office of Court Interpreting Services to launch the Courts’ Interpreter Registry and the first-ever Amharic Court Interpreter Certification Examination. These initiatives demonstrate the Courts’ commitment to increase access for Limited English Proficient (LEP) and deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals to the judicial …
March 1, 2022
In November 2020, the Family Center of the Conciliation Court (FCCC) within the Arizona Superior Court in Pima County, was awarded a Pandemic Response and Recovery grant from the State Justice Institute (SJI) to implement the Court’s vision of converting what was an employee-led, in-person parent education course to an on-demand, online, and self-paced e-Learning …
February 4, 2022
SJI awarded grant funding to the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia (“Court”) to produce a jury orientation video for its unified court system. The video replaced a 30-year-old video featuring actor Raymond Burr. The Court drafted, produced, and disseminated a timeless video to be used during jury orientation to explain the basics of …