Some courts in Canada and at least one Texas probate court judge are showing how easy it can be to make welcomed user-friendly changes to their day-to-day operations. Ever wonder how to respectfully handle the topic of pronouns? Look to Canada. British Columbia’s provincial and supreme court systems each adopted new rules in late 2020…
The masses embraced the online puzzle Wordle by early January 2022. Launched in October 2021, it had 90 users on November 1. Numbers skyrocketed to 300,000 by the middle of January. Wordle has ensnared the numbers people and the word people, the Scrabble obsessives and the Sudoku fans. It’s easier than the New York Times’s…
It’s second nature for jurors to be instructed and regularly reminded to avoid reading and watching the news while they are sitting in their case. And to not perform their own internet research. Here are Michigan’s Model Civil Jury Instruction 97.21 and a portion of 2.04 M Civ JI 97.21 Caution about Publicity in Cases…
Recent times have humbled us with too many examples of our legal system processes not being more just, fair, or decent. The count feels like it’s growing. We need to start asking and addressing: What are we afraid of? I do not pretend to know the answer. But it often helps to start by recognizing…
A 10-year snapshot of filing activity is now possible with the Michigan Supreme Court clerk’s December 2021 activity post. As is the custom, no commentary about the “why” for any trend is offered. The data is the data.
It’s not a throwaway oral argument question when a Michigan justice asks or reminds counsel that the Court also must consider the next 100, 200, or 500 cases when deciding what the rule of law is and how it should be applied. Sometimes it’s mentioned in written statements or opinions: “As members of this Court…
Many writers’ Word settings are already configured to use Smart (curly) Quotes as they type. But straight quotes can slip in when others add content (because their Word is set to use Straight Quotation Marks when they type). Straight quotes can also slip in when a writer copies online content and pastes it into their…
A review of the Michigan Supreme Court’s argument orders spanning 80 docket numbers hints that the 2021-22 term will not be a sleeper. Technically, the term begins on August 1. But, traditionally, oral arguments begin in October. IOP 7.301(B). The below categorization reminds how state courts can matter in everyday life. For law students considering…
A recent law review‘s observation about remote courts sparked my curiosity: [W]hile courts frequently assume tenants are accessing remote platforms on a computer, our interviews suggest they are often doing so on a phone for which the remote platform may not be optimized, making it unlikely the tenant can see everything happening in the proceeding….
The Michigan Supreme Court’s 2020-21 term ended on July 31. MCR 7.301(B). August becomes a major holiday for court-data nerds: the time to see where the case data has settled. (SCOTUS doesn’t deserve all the attention!) Measures and trends are sometimes tricky. It’s probably best to start with how I approach the effort. First, I…