Najim Dost and KJ Meyer, event co-organizers

LAW WEEK COLORADO

Congresswoman Diana DeGette will deliver the keynote at a fundraising event for women’s legal education in Afghanistan next week at the University of Denver.

The presentations and cocktail reception will be held Monday, April 19 at 6 p.m. at the HRTM Building of DU’s Daniels College of Business. The event is free to attend, though donations are encouraged. Proceeds will go to the nonprofit Afghan Institute for Learning to develop scholarships for Afghan women to attend law school.

The event was conceived by ’07 DU Law grad KJ Meyer and international studies doctoral candidate Najim Dost, along with DU law students Timothy Garvey and Anjali Nanda.

“Enormous hurdles still exist for women to gain education and become a stronger voice in Afghan society,” Meyer said. “Our focus is on legal education because we feel that being able to send women into the legal and civil spectrum there will give them more of a say in decision making in the country.”

DeGette is expected to talk about her recent visit to Afghanistan. Toc Dunlap, who heads the U.S. fiscal sponsor of the Afghan Institute for Learning, will speak via videoconference about the 15-year-old group’s educational programs for Afghan women. Event co-organizer Dost, who helped found research and advocacy group Jobs for Afghans, will also speak.

Sponsors include DU’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies & Sturm College of Law, the Colorado Bar Association and Amnesty International.

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U.S. Sen. Mark Udall on Thursday filed an amendment to the Senate’s health care reform bill intended to reduce the cost and complexity of medical malpractice lawsuits, which many consider a factor in the rising cost of health care. The Colorado Democrat’s amendment, which is supported by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver, would establish federal grants for pilot programs administered by nonprofit organizations to streamline the legal process in medical malpractice cases, The Denver Business Journal reports.

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An old debate about whether judges should be elected or appointed is heating up again. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and several state Supreme Court justices are planning a nationwide push during next year’s state legislative sessions to end the practice of electing judges. Nevada already has such a proposal before voters on the 2010 ballot, the Associated Press reports.
Colorado is one of the states that has a so-called “merit selection” system. The University of Denver’s Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, headed by former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis, is coordinating the effort.

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Jim Leventhal, founding partner of Leventhal Brown & Puga, was named Denver’s Medical Malpractice Lawyer of the Year for 2010 by Best Lawyers, the oldest and most respected peer-reviewed publication in the legal profession. Leventhal has been listed in Best Lawyers in America since 1993 in the Medical Malpractice category. This is the first year that Best Lawyers has bestowed an award for Lawyer of the Year in the Medical Malpractice category.

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By Ali McNally, LAW WEEK COLORADO
Theresa Spahn, a former top executive in Colorado’s Judicial Branch, is the new director of the Judicial Selective Initiative at the University of Denver’s Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, headed by former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis.
“It’s a national initiative that is going to leverage what we consider a unique window of opportunity to really move the needle on judicial selection reform throughout the U.S.,” said the institute’s spokeswoman, Dallas Jamison. “[Kourlis] has known Theresa for some time and is a big fan of her work and her achievements.”
Jamison added that the institute will make a formal announcement on Dec. 10 that will detail the initiative’s official agenda and participants. Spahn and Kourlis were out of time at press time and could not be reached.
Spahn quietly joined the institute last month. She formerly headed the state Office of the Child’s Representative. Linda Weinerman has been acting as interim executive director.
The office is a state agency charged with representing in dependency and neglect (child abuse), delinquency, domestic relations, paternity, truancy and probate cases. The office contracts with more than 250 attorneys.
According OCR staff attorney Sarah Ehrlich, applications will be reviewed and interviewing will begin next week. Spahn’s former position should be filled by Dec. 1, she said.

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