The American Bar Association has scheduled its Annual Meeting for Thursday through Tuesday, August 5 to 10, in San Francisco.
The meeting, which is the premier gathering of legal professionals in the United States, gives attorneys the opportunity to stay abreast of recent developments in the law. It offers an expo with more than 100 exhibitors providing a diverse assortment of legal products and services, an opening assembly in the Herbst Theatre on Saturday, August 7, and a President's Reception in San Francisco City Hall, also on Saturday, from 7 to 9 p.m.
All the ABA entities will be offering programs to fulfill the specific needs of their members. Among the sections that have planned extensive offerings that will be of interest to corporate counsel are the following:
Business Law
The Business Law Section will offer attorneys the chance to focus on the hottest commercial and corporate law issues of the day and the opportunity to satisfy an entire year's worth of CLE requirements. Over 40 CLE hours are being offered in the Business Section's programs, which are being taught by experts in the field. The Business Law Section headquarters are the Fairmont San Francisco and InterContinental, Mark Hopkins.
Meetings designated as programs will be eligible for MCLE accreditation, usually in panel format, sponsored by one or more of the section committees. Program topics, scheduled for Friday through Monday, include, on Friday, Natural Resources Cross-Border M&A in the Era of Social Responsibility; The Impact of Healthcare Reform on Financing the Healthcare Industry; SEC Disclosure Rules and Board of Director Diversity; and Tips on the Basics to Have an Effective International Transaction.
On Saturday, among the topics being presented are Directors' and Officers' Liabilities: An International Perspective; Project Finance in Asia: What's Hot and Why; Balancing Allegiances in the Boardroom: The Problem of Designated Directors; Negotiating and Re-Negotiating Forbearance Agreements in Troubled Commercial Loans; and ADR in the Business Courts: How Commercial Judges Encourage Settlement.
On Sunday, the Business Section will present The Cutting Edge of Arbitration: What You Need to Know; Securitization Reform: Will the Cure Kill the Patient?;Pro-Active Strategies to Minimize E-Discovery Pain: An Ounce of Prevention; and International Financial Reporting Standards: Implications of Accounting Convergence for Business Lawyers.
On Monday,Strategies for Chinese Companies Seeking Access to the U.S. Capital Markets; Current Issues in SEC Enforcement; and Cloud Computing - How In-house Counsel Can Get Ahead of the Cloud will be offered.
Other highlights of the Business Section are a Section Counsel Meeting on Saturday from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Fairmont San Francisco; a Section Welcome Reception on Saturday from 6 to 7:30 p.m., also at the Fairmont, with cocktails and entertainment; and, back by popular demand, a Diversity Networking Reception on Sunday, August 8, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Fairmont. This reception will explain how the business members plan to promote the recruitment and retention of diverse lawyers and how to navigate the vast array of the section's resources - and it offers a great time for networking.
The Pro Bono Committee invites members to its breakfast on Monday, August 9, from 7:30 to 9 a.m. At this traditional event, speakers will present their unique perspectives on the role of business lawyers in providing legal services that help the poor. The section luncheon on Monday, August 9, includes an awards ceremony and keynote speaker Andrew S. Grove, former chairman of Intel Corporation, speaking on "Quo Vadis (wither goest thou) Silicon Valley."
Advance registration and ticket purchase deadline is Monday, July 12. Section schedules and events can be found at www.ababusinesslaw.org.
Litigation
The Litigation Section will run programs from Thursday to Saturday, August 5 to 7, at the Westin San Francisco Market Street.All this section's programming will take place at the Moscone Center West. On Thursday, programs will run from 10:30 a.m. until 5:15 p.m. and include The Impact of Technology and Globalization on Ethics for the 21st Century Lawyer; Managing Discovery Costs and Minimizing Risks with and without Outsourcing; and Social Networking Sites: Ethically Maximizing the Use of These Powerful Media. A welcome reception at the Westin San Francisco Market Street will follow from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
On Friday, program topics include Litigation in the Internet Age: Making Litigation Rules and Procedures Responsive to Today's Changed Landscape and Corporate Governance 2010: Don't Get Caught in the Past. The International Human Rights Award and Passing of the Gavel Luncheon will run from 12:15 to 1:45 p.m. with featured speaker James Brosnahan of Morrison & Foerster LLP.The Committee Coffee Networking Hour at the Westin San Francisco Market Street will run from 5 to 6 p.m., and An Evening at the Jewish Contemporary Museum will run from 7 to 10 p.m.
On Saturday morning, The Roberts Court: Year Four, Welcome Justice Sotomayor! panel discussion with professors Drew S. Days III, Morrison & Foerster LLP, Pamela Karlan, the Stanford Law School, and Kenneth W. Starr, Baylor University, will break down the 2009-2010 Supreme Court term with insightful and humorous analyses. The day's discussion will run until 5 p.m., with The murder of Vincent Chin, a program that explores the development of race-based hate crimes under federal law from the trial of Vincent Chin in 1982 to recent cases and how they have been prosecuted, wrapping up the day.
On Sunday, the final program - Lawyers at Midlife: Planning for and Living the Rest of Your Life - will run from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. It will be presented by Mike Long, attorney counselor for the Oregon Attorney Assistance Program and author of Lawyers at Midlife - Laying the Groundwork for the Road Ahead.
International
The International Section of the ABA plans to run a program from August 6 to 9 at the JW Marriott. So far, included in their program are The Essentials of Taking an Immigration Case: Overview, Forms of Relief, BIA and Appeals to the Circuit Courts (this is a co-sponsored showcase program) from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Thursday.
On Friday, programs run from 8:30 a.m. until 5:15 p.m., followed by the SOC Business Meeting from 4 to 6 p.m. at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis and a welcome reception from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the JW Marriott Union Square.
Saturday's offerings include a mock hearing on a motion for summary judgment in a hypothetical case that is an amalgam of facts from recent Alien Tort Statute cases with William Casto, professor, Texas Tech University School of Law, and Michael Levine, EpsteinBeckerGreen in New York. Careers in National Security Law and a Rule of Law Luncheon and Awards Ceremony will be part of Saturday's offerings.
On Sunday, CLE programs will run from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. at the JW Marriott Union Square and include A More Just Rule of Law: Marshaling Lawyers to Prevent Mass Atrocities with speakersMichael Newton, professor, Vanderbilt University School of Law, and Diane Orentlicher, deputy officer of War Crimes Issues, U.S. Department of State.
On Monday, a house delegate's breakfast will run from 7:30 to 10:00 a.m. and the leadership meetings will run from 8 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Antitrust
The Antitrust Section of the ABA will meet from Friday to Sunday, August 6 to 8, at the Ritz-Carlton. The General Session: From Reagan to Obama - Priorities & Perspective on the Civil Division will run from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. followed by a Shaping the Law: A Solicitors General Roundtable until noon.
Saturday's luncheon presentation, ABA Rule of Law Initiative Luncheon Panel: Combating Global Gender-Based Violence, is the American legal profession's premier event honoring champions of the rule of law around the world. It runs from noon to 2 p.m. Two general sessions, The Future of Books and Digital Publishing and Insights from the nation's Top CLOs will round out Saturday's program.
On Sunday, the day includes a CLE Centre Showcase Program: Fair Trial, Free Press? High-Profile Cases in a 24/7 New Media World from 10:30 to noon, followed by the Margaret Brent Lawyers of Achievement Luncheon. The Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of women lawyers who have excelled and paved the way to success for other women lawyers.
Visit www.abanet.org/annual for more information.
Section of Dispute Resolution
The Section of Dispute Resolution Annual Meeting will be held Thursday through Sunday, August 5 to 8, headquartered at the Intercontinental Hotel and the Moscone Center and with events scheduled at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis.
The meeting begins on Thursday, August 4 with Same-Sex Marriage - Moving beyond State Courts, a panel discussion with speakers who are all on the front lines of developments in the law and new federal constitutional claims with respect to same-sex couples and marriage. Mediating the Intellectual Property Case and Arbitrating Complex Cases in the Healthcare Field: Education over Advocacy will also be discussed using the panel format.
On Friday, programs run from 8:30 a.m. until 5:15 p.m. Emerging Legal & Social Issues in Same-Sex Dissolutions, Wrestling with the Ethical Dilemmas of an Online Dispute Resolution Practice, and The New Reality of Engaging the Public in Environmental Decision-Making will be offered. A Quiz show titled Judging Aging uses an entertaining "game show" format to explore, among other things, the cognitive functions used in judging, how aging affects those functions, the positive affects of aging that enhance a judge's performance, and what judges can do to enhance cognitive functioning and slow age-related deterioration.
On Friday evening from 6:30 to 9 p.m., the section dinner and reception will be held at the University Club, 800 Powell Street.
On Saturday, various meetings will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. with two CLE offerings - The Real Realities of Cloud Computing sponsored by the Section of Science and Technology Law and ADR in the Business Courts, sponsored by the Business Section.
High-Profile Cases in a 24/7 "New Media" World will wrap up the program on Sunday at noon. Sponsored by the Judicial Division with Hon. Vaughn Walker of San Francisco speaking, this program will use real life examples to highlight the growing challenges of litigating high-profile cases in a world where a 24/7 news cycle is the norm and the journalists' code of ethics is being written "on the fly."
For online registration, go to www.xpressreg.net/register/abaa080/lookup.asp.