Congratulations to the Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform for its recently issued report on the legal climate of the various states. The report is a thoroughly researched and elegantly presented compilation of information about various elements of each state’s legal climate. Based on a survey of in-house counsel, the report ranks the states by overall legal climate, as well as on various aspects of the legal climate.

As in ILR’s previous two reports, Delaware is the overall winner, followed by Vermont, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Hampshire. (Notably, both Nebraska and New Hampshire ban punitive damages.) West Virginia ranks last, followed by Louisiana, Illinois, California, and (somewhat to my surprise) Alabama.

The report includes a very cool interactive map. Readers can click on a state and be brought to a page that is chock full of information about the state’s legal climate. The ILR also came up with a nifty video presentation on each state that is a take off on election night TV coverage.