In DC this week? Here are some must-attend programs at AALS

I hope to see many of our LEF readers at AALS this week.  There are a lot of panels and events related to the legal profession this year.  Here are some highlights:

Thursday, Jan. 5 8:45AM-5:15PM.  Workshop on the Changing Legal Profession and Effect on Law Schools. This is an extensive program filled with numerous panels and a luncheon event devoted to a host of isssues facing the profession and legal education.  According to AALS over 500 have signed up to attend.  A detailed explanation of the Workshop's purpose along with a list of sessions and times follows the jump.

Friday, Jan. 6 10:30AM-12:15PM.  PR Section Program:  Does the First Amendment Protect Attorney Advice, Assistance and Representation?  The panel will be moderated by Peter Joy (Washington University), and the featured speakers are Adam Liptak (New York Times Supreme Court Correspondent) and David Udell (Cardozo Law, Director of the National Center for Access to Justice).  There will are also two papers selected from a call--David McGowan (San Diego) will discuss his paper, Lawspeech, and I will discuss my paper, Democratizing the Delivery of Legal Services.  Here is the description from the AALS program:

This program explores the intersection of First Amendment rights of lawyers and clients when faced with government attempts to limit attorney advice, assistance, and representation.  A series of Supreme Court cases, some of them decided very recently, raise significant questions about the constraints on government attempts to limit lawyers in providing advice and legal services to clients.  Issues to be explored include: Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez and legal advice and advocacy as protected speech; how Citizens United intersects with NAACP v. Button; implications of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project on limiting lawyer's advice in other areas; Milavetz v. United States and issues of forced speech and disclosure requirements in connection with the delivery of legal services; and other First Amendment implications for the practice of law including lawyers' use of social media, advertising, and criticism of the judiciary.  

Details on over a dozen sessions and events at Thursday's Workshop can be found after this jump.

From the Program for the AALS Workshop on the Future of the Legal Profession and Legal Education: Changes in Law Practice; Implications for Legal Education.

Major changes in the legal profession raise important questions about the future of legal educa­tion. These changes in the legal profession reflect both long term trends, such as increasing globalization and cross-border practice, advances in technology, and a shift from internal to external sources of regulation and policing of professional misconduct, and recent developments, such as a worldwide economic recession and a global political situation that has heightened both national security and civil liberties concerns. In turn, these changes raise important questions about the future, not only regarding how law will be practiced and what professional skills our students will need, but also how law schools will operate and how professionals dedicated to legal education will teach and otherwise conceive of their missions.

Among the questions these many developments raise: What new or different kinds of training will the law schools of the future need to provide? How can law schools better serve students seeking to develop critical skills in the areas demanded by changes in legal practice, including advanced problem identification and problem solving, entrepreneurism, legal judgment, creativ­ity, and complex case management? How can and should law schools respond to critiques from both practitioners and educators (such as in the Carnegie Foundation report) urging an expansion in the range of cognitive skills addressed through legal education and a broadening of the scope of law school pedagogy beyond traditional methods?

A second set of questions focuses on changes in the legal academy: What innovations are cur­rently underway in law schools to respond to changes taking place in the legal profession and in legal education? How will projected changes in the economics of the legal profession affect law students’ priorities and law schools’ budgets? Most fundamentally, what could and should members of the legal academy be doing to plan for the future in response to the many changes currently underway and to be expected in the near future in both the legal profession and in legal education?

The 2012 AALS Annual Meeting Workshop will take up these and other related questions. This one-day workshop aims to stimulate thought and the sharing of ideas throughout the legal acad­emy about the many interrelated issues raised by change in both the legal profession and legal education. Participants will have the chance to hear from expert observers and to offer their own ideas, in frank and open exchanges featuring a wide range of perspectives and approaches.

The Workshop will involve a series of discussions organized around two plenary sessions. The first plenary will be held in the morning and is entitled “Changes in the Legal Profession and Regulation.” Featuring experienced observers of the profession, including both practitioners and law professors, this plenary will explore and link together the many facets of change cur­rently underway, addressing topics including developments in large firm practice, public interest, practice, legal regulation, legal education, and regulation of legal education. A second plenary, to be held in the afternoon, is entitled “Innovations in Legal Education,” and will focus on legal education and innovations currently underway that respond to the changing conditions of law practice or point the way towards the future of legal education in other respects.

After each plenary session, workshop participants will be invited to choose among a range of concurrent sessions that will explore in more depth particular aspects of the general themes raised by the plenary sessions. These sessions will include both morning and afternoon panel dis­cussions on innovations in teaching, which will feature some invited speakers and some speakers selected from proposals submitted in response to an AALS Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking descriptions of innovative teaching currently taking place. Another panel will focus on innovative work of many kinds currently being done at the intersections among teaching, scholarship and service, and will also include speakers selected through a RFP.

Other concurrent sessions will address topics related to changes in the legal profession, such as globalization, access to justice, technological innovation, innovations in delivery of law and law-related services, and government lawyering, with time reserved for audience discussion. Still other sessions will focus on subjects related to legal education, including the innovations in teaching and scholarship panels already mentioned, as well as a session on financing and organiz­ing law schools of the future. Participants especially interested in either “side” of the interrelated subjects of change in the legal profession and change in legal education should find ample choices to pursue the topics of most interest to them during both the morning and afternoon concurrent sessions.

» Welcome and Introduction (8:45am - 9:00am)

» Plenary Session: Changes in Legal Profession and Regulation (9:00am - 10:00am)

» Concurrent Session: Globalization (10:45am - 12:00pm)

» Concurrent Session: Government Lawyering (10:45am - 12:00pm)

» Concurrent Session: Innovation in Delivering Legal and Law Related Services (10:45am - 12:00pm)

» Concurrent Session: Teaching Innovations (10:45am - 12:00pm)

» Concurrent Session: Technological Innovation in Practice and Education (10:45am - 12:00pm)

» AALS Workshop on the Future of the Legal Profession and Legal Education: Changes in Law Practice: Implications for Legal Education Luncheon (12:00 pm - 2:00 pm)

» Plenary Discussion (10:00am - 10:30am)

» Refreshment Break (10:30am - 10:45am)

» Plenary Session: Innovations in Legal Education (2:00 pm - 3:15 pm)

» Refreshment Break (3:15pm - 3:30pm)

» Concurrent Session: Access to Justice (3:30pm - 5:15pm)

» Concurrent Session: Innovations at the Intersection of Scholarship, Teaching and Practice (3:30pm - 5:15pm)

» Concurrent Session: Organizing and Financing Law Schools (3:30pm - 5:15pm)

» Concurrent Session: Regulation of the Legal Profession and the Academy (3:30pm - 5:15pm)

» Concurrent Session: Teaching Innovations (3:30pm - 5:15pm)