A nonprofit group that works to improve the nation’s legal system is moving its headquarters from Chicago to the Drake University campus in Des Moines. Allan Sobel is director of the American Judicature Society. The 90-year-old A-J-S is a non-partisan organization of more than six-thousand judges, lawyers and other members of the public who seek to better the courts.Sobel says A-J-S is working on many legal issues, including improving the juvenile justice system, making the jury system more effective and reducing wrongful convictions. He says the organization conducts and distributes research to support reform in areas such as judicial conduct, judicial election abuses and court procedures. Sobel says the A-J-S has established a partnership with Drake University and will make the move to Des Moines this weekend. Sobel says “Although each organization will operate independently, A-J-S and Drake will collaborate on programs and projects of mutual interest.”The new A-J-S headquarters will be in a three-story 19th-century house on campus that served as the Drake president’s home until the early 1950s. Sobel has hired several people to join him at the new Des Moines office and foresees eventually having a staff of about a dozen. For more information, visit “www.ajs.org”. Drake’s is one of the oldest law schools in the country.
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