Since joining the legal academia, I’ve attended mostly academic conferences: AALS, Law and Society; American Society for Legal History; various labor and employment law meetings (including a now-annual affair dreamed up on this very blog); some pure history conferences; and various small work-shops.
It’s not that I don’t like lawyers. I practiced longer than most legal academics before I began teaching, and really, some of my best friends are lawyers. Still, beyond speaking at some CLE-type events, I rarely went to conferences for lawyers.
That changed last year, when I was invited to speak at the ABA Section of Labor & Employment Law’s State & Local Government Bargaining & Employment Law Midwinter Meeting. In short, that’s the ABA group dedicated to public sector labor law, which I write about. I thought it would be fun, albeit a bit of a junket (it was held in a resort in Mexico). But hey, they were going to pay my way. . . .
When I got to the conference, I was tremendously impressed. The people and speakers (who weren’t me) were smart and incredibly knowledgeable, the written materials were outstanding, and so were the discussions. I was so impressed with the 2007 conference I came back in 2008 (even though they didn’t pay). It was again very rewarding. Public sector labor law is especially difficult to research: it’s a matter of state and local law which vary tremendously; there is no hornbook or other general overview text; and while much of the law is made at the state agency level, Westlaw and LEXIS only have the decisions of nine state agencies on line. And for some reason, you don’t see a lot of posts about it on Prawfsblog (unless Secunda is ranting about public sector employment and Con Law).
But even beyond the quirks of this subject, lawyers’ conferences have a whole different feel than academic conferences. Not only are ABA conferences often in some sunny resort south of the border in the middle of winter, but also the conference I attended has golf and tennis tournaments in the afternoons. Academic conferences are structured to make you feel like you should be attending something every daylight hour for several days – and many academics seem to think it’s some form of transgressive naughtiness to miss sessions. This ABA conference didn’t even have mid-late afternoon sessions.
Further, the types of discussions are different. As a pointy-headed PhD type, I’m down with using theory, upping the level of abstraction, and generally making the topic speak to Law In General, The State, or what have you. More seriously, I honestly believe that theory, history, etc. are relevant to actual lawyering. But lawyers’ conferences are great if you really care about the nitty-gritty of doctrine in a given area – when you don’t feel a need to make it about something “bigger” – and to learn what the parties who litigate these things are thinking about, and where they think the gaps, practical problems, and coming issues in the law are.
Plus, the mohitos on the beach are pretty good.
Posted by JosephSlater on March 5, 2008 at 11:11 AM
Comments
As one retired State Court judge now teaching law school full time, much (although not all) lawyer CLE is of very often of high quality. ALI-ABA conferences are often particularly good, as are specialty practice conferences.
Posted by: Michael Yarnell | Mar 10, 2008 7:21:12 PM
It might just be the Labor & Employment Law section. I’ve been to the IP Section’s conference, it’s jam-packed with sessions, and there are no mojitos.
Posted by: Bruce Boyden | Mar 6, 2008 11:45:26 AM