Happy 2025! Heading to AALS in SF? Here's the Guide You Need - LER Bonus Content No. 18 (01.01.25)
If you're in San Francisco for the Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, here's your guide to all things legal ethics (plus a few of my favorite spots in SF) đ
Welcome
Welcome to your eighteenth installment of Bonus Content from the Legal Ethics Roundup. In addition to the (FREE!) weekly roundup every Monday morning, I regularly post Bonus Content for headlines that canât wait or other timely information.
This post is aimed at LER readers headed to San Francisco next week for the Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, but even if youâre not attending, youâll find information below about new voices in professional responsibility scholarship and other tidbits that may be of interest. Scroll to the end for my San Francisco recommendations, including an art exhibit you wonât want to miss and a park bench with a view.
The Legal Ethics Roundup Guide to AALS (Plus a Few of My Favorite Spots in SF)
The AALS Annual Meeting website is not-so-easy to navigate, so let me help you out.
Below you will find a list of the legal ethics programming I plan to attend. One highlight in particular that you wonât see on the official AALS website is the informal PR Section happy hour at the Cavilierâs Blue Bar, located in Hotel Zetta on 360 Jessie Street, from 4:30-5:30 PM, Wednesday, January 8. Iâll be there, along with outgoing Section Chair Ben Edwards (UNLV) and incoming Section Chair Jon Lee (Oklahoma), so please stop by and say hello.
You may also catch me in the Exhibition Hall at West Academic Booth 207, where youâll find my casebooks Professional Responsibility: A Contemporary Approach; Leadership, Law & Pipelines to Power; and Legal Ethics for the Real World: Building Skills Through Case Studies (plus lots of other terrific materials for teaching legal ethics) or at New York University Press Booth 309, where you will find my books Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court and Law Democratized: A Blueprint for Solving the Justice Crisis.
I hope this schedule is helpful to you!
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
This day is jam-packed with legal ethics sessions, so I plan to start my morning with a yoga class at Hot 8 Yoga on 248 Sutter Street. I discovered this studio when I was in San Francisco last spring to talk about Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court at the American Law Institute Annual Meeting (see LER No. 43 for more on that). The studio is beautiful, and they offer an intro week special rate.
9:50 AM - 11:20 AM Section on Professional Responsibility Official Program: Professional Responsibility in An Age of Technological Change + Presentation of Zacharias Prize
Location: The Moscone Center, Room 208, Level Two South
Description: This panel discussion will feature discussion around professional responsibility issues in an era of technological change. The panel will focus on lawyers and the rise of artificial intelligence.
Speakers: Benjamin Edwards (UNLV), David Freeman Engstrom (Stanford), Rachelle Holmes Perkins (George Mason), Joe Regalia (UNLV)
Following the program, the Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility will be presented. This yearâs recipient is Scott L. Cummings (UCLA) for his article Lawyers in Backsliding Democracy, 112 Cal. L. Rev. 513 (2024), with honorable mention going to Nora Freeman Engstrom (Stanford) and James Stone (Stanford) for their article Auto Clubs and the Lost Origins of the Access-to-Justice Crisis, 134 Yale L. J. __ (2024). Revisit LER Bonus Content No. 17 for more history about the Zacharias Prize and an exclusive Q&A with Professor Cummings.
10:20 AM - 11:20 AM Multidisciplinary Approaches to Ethical Legal Tech Innovation
Location: The Moscone Center, Room 160, Upper Mezzanine Level South
Description: This panel will explore the future of the legal profession, legal education innovations, and strategies and partnerships for implementing legal tech in the curriculum.
Speakers: Drew Amerson (San Francisco), Dan Jackson (Northeastern), Andy Perlman (Suffolk), LeighAnne Thompson (Seattle), Miguel Willis (Penn)
Lunch Break! If you want to join me, pre-order and pick up lunch from Joe & the Juice on Market Street. Itâs a 15-minute walk from the Moscone Center. (JOEs Identity is my favorite if youâre looking for a green juice recommendation.)
12:50 PM - 1:50 PM AALS Arc of Career Programs Focus on Faculty Governance: A Crucial but Often Overlooked Component of the Law Professorâs Professional Life
A caveat: this panel is not explicitly about legal ethics or professional responsibility, but as one of eight trustees who govern Michigan State University and a member of the University of Houston Faculty Senate, it is especially intriguing to me. And with two legal ethics scholars among the speakers â Paula Schaefer (Tennessee) and my casebook co-author Peter Joy (Washington â St. Louis) â Iâm betting that aspects of legal ethics will be on the agenda.
Location: The Moscone Center, Room 209, Level Two South
Description: This panel focuses on an overlooked yet crucial part of a law professorâs professional life: participating in institutional governance, whether at the law school or university/college level. The panel consists of faculty of different degrees of seniority who have thought deeply about issues of governance as reflected in written work or other professional roles, including administration. The panel topics include: the need for better training of new faculty, deans, and administrators in the norms and policies of faculty governance; better incentives for faculty to engage in meaningful governance; and the relationship between governance and academic freedom.
Speakers: Eduardo R.C. Capulong (Hawaii), Paul Diller (Wilamette), Peter Joy (Washington â St. Louis), Lisa Lucile Owens (Massachusetts), Paula Schaefer (Tennessee)
2:40 PM - 4:10 PM Professional Responsibility New Voices Panel
The New Voices panel is always a highlight of AALS for me. Check back here for links to the selected papers, which Iâll post as they become available.
Location: The Moscone Center, Room 214, Level Two South
Description: In this interactive discussion, three scholars who have been selected from a competitive call for papers will present their works-in-progress that touch on issues of professional responsibility. Each scholar has been paired with a senior commentator who will provide feedback and guidance before opening up the conversation to participants.
Speakers: Gilat Bachar (Temple), Jon Lee (Oklahoma), Milan Markovic (Texas A&M), Jane Mitchell (BYU), Melissa Mortazavi (Oklahoma), Debra Moss Vollweiler (Nova Southeastern)
4:30PM -5:30 PM Informal PR Section Happy Hour @ the Cavalierâs Blue Bar in Hotel Zetta, 360 Jessie Street
A short walk from the Moscone Center, join your fellow professional responsibility colleagues for an informal happy hour.
January 9
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM Section on Leadership Official Program, Co-Sponsored by the Section on Professional Responsibility: The Courageous Intersection of Leadership Education, Professional Responsibility, and Professional Identity Formation
Location: The Moscone Center, Room 160, Upper Mezzanine Level South
Description: Law schools have long taught professional responsibility and ethics, including instruction in the rules of professional conduct, and the values and responsibilities of the legal profession. Two law school curricular movements of more recent but equally important vintageâthose focusing on leadership skills development and professional identity formationâintersect with and enhance professional responsibility and professionalism. This panel explores the interactions of these three critically important areas in the context of the curriculum, programming, and mission of the law school.
Speakers: Lee Fisher (Cleveland State), Joan Heminway (Tennessee), Jerry Organ (St. Thomas), Jennifer Rosato Perea (ABA), Aric Short (Texas A&M), Kellye Testy (AALS)
12:50 PM â 2:20PM AALS Awards Ceremony â The Deborah L. Rhode Award
This is the fourth year for the Deborah L. Rhode Award, created to honor the legacy of a scholar who left us much too soon. I received the award last year â for more about the awardâs history see LER No. 21 and LER No. 24. As I said in my remarks: âIt is an impossible endeavor to appropriately capture what it means to have received an award honoring an icon of the intellectual fields in which I strive to make a meaningful contribution who, over the years and especially in that last year, became one of my best friends.â (Hereâs a link to my full speech if you want to learn more about that friendship, including what happened when Deborah got stuck in a Nordstrom fitting room on a shopping excursion with me and nearly missed delivering an important speech at an AALS meeting several years ago! For even more, read my speech from her memorial at Stanford Law School in 2021.)
Location: Moscone Center Esplanade Ballroom 154 & 156
Description: This award honors the contributions, service, and leadership of Deborah Rhode by recognizing a new trailblazer in legal education and the legal profession. The recipient is an individual who has great potential to make a mark on legal education and the legal profession, who exemplifies Deborahâs groundbreaking career, imagination, and inspired action as evidenced by work that brings a novel perspective or call for action in legal education or the legal profession.
Winners: Camille A. Nelson (Hawaii) and Jessica Steinberg (George Washington)
Other San Francisco Recommendations
San Francisco is one of my favorite cities. I recommend a meal at Kokkari Estiatorio if you can get a reservation, a visit to the bench at the top of the hill in Alta Plaza Park where youâll enjoy a nearly-360 view of the city, and a stroll through the SFMOMA, which has a canât-miss temporary exhibit featuring the work of Amy Sherald, who painted Michelle Obamaâs official portrait. Youâll find me at all of these spots (plus a quick visit for a haircut at Spoke and Weal - they are the best - in SF go see Sheila, in Austin go see Tim, in NYC go see Matthew).
Five years ago at the AALS Annual Meeting in Washington DC, I brought my kids to the National Portrait Gallery. In the photo below my daughter Grace takes in Sheraldâs portrait of Obama. Itâs on loan for the SFMOMA exhibit. I canât wait to see it again.
âI really have this deep belief that images can change the world.â
â Amy Sherald
I agree with Sherald. What we see matters. I believe it is especially true with portraits. For more on a portrait that led me to become an academic, check out my essay Becoming Visible. For more on a portrait that is especially personal, check out my stepson Samuel Jeffersonâs essay More Than a Portrait: Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Bernard Jefferson (and revisit LER No. 55).
I'll be back Monday with another Legal Ethics Roundup. And if youâre in San Francisco, I hope we get a chance to say hello!