by RICH CASSIDY on AUGUST 5, 2010
The American Bar Association’s Annual Meeting began today in San Francisco. The annual meeting is always an extravaganza of American lawyering attended by thousand of lawyers with a smorgasbord table groaning with continuing legal education, social events, and governance meetings.
Nearly 1,500 programs and events will occur from Thursday August 5 through Tues August 11.
For lawyers who have never attended, it is impossible to imagine the wealth and diversity of everything legal that will be offered. But you can get a sense of the scope of what is available from the official program posted on the ABA web site at: http://new.abanet.org/annual/pdfs/933926_Program_FINAL.pdf
I’ve attended at least a dozen ABA Annual Meetings, and in my mind, San Francisco is an unbeatable venue for the event. Of course, it is a large, cosmopolitan city, and even the 7,600 lawyers and guests expected for the meeting don’t necessarily make a visible impact. Still, if you are around the meeting hotels or the Mascone Convention Center, you can’t miss our badged and ribboned colleagues, locked in animated conversations, becoming acquainted and re-acquainted as they swap tales and tips and celebrate the profession.
This year, the coincidence of timing, agenda, and geography makes it seem inevitable that the talk of the town will center around same–sex marriage. The meeting convenes only the day after U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker’s decision in PERRY v. SCHWARZENEGGER, striking down California’s ban same sex marriage. Walker wrote that “Proposition 8 cannot withstand any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause[.] Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.” His decision seems likely to spark a U.S Supreme Court ruling on the question, perhaps as soon as next year. On Sunday, Judge Walker will make an appearance at the meeting, discussing “Fair Trial, Free Press? High-Profile Cases in a 24/7 “New Media” World” along with Perry v. Schwarzenegger co-counsel David Bois.
Bois, a prominent American litigator, who is best known as lead counsel for Vice President Al Gore in Bush v. Gore, will be the keynote speaker at the ABA Opening Assembly in the Herbst Theatre of the War Memorial Veterans Building on Saturday afternoon. Boies will address rule of law issues at the session, which is the formal kick-off of the Annual Meeting.
Vermont’s own warrior in the effort to revolutionize the American law of marriage to include gays and lesbians, Middlebury lawyer Beth Robinson, presented today in an ABA CLE Centre Showcase Program on the subject, “Same-Sex Marriage—Moving Beyond State Courts.” Perry v. Schwarzenegger Co-Counsel Theodore Olson missed the panel discussion, tied up preparing for the next stage of the litigation.
The House of Delegates will consider a resolution sponsored by the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, Report 111, which if adopted, urges state, territorial, and tribal governments to eliminate all of their legal barriers to civil marriage between two persons of the same sex who are otherwise eligible to marry. The Report is co-sponsored by 13 different ABA entities, including my own Vermont Bar Association.
But no one topic can dominate a meeting this big, and there are many other interesting subjects at hand. Let me mention a few of my favorites.
The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20, continues its review of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct in view of technological developments and globalization of legal practice. It presented today on “20/20 Vision: The Impact of Technology and Globalization on Ethics for the 21st Century Lawyer.”
On Saturday afternoon, Larry Tribe, Senior Counselor for Access to Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, will discuss the Department’s new access to justice initiative, addressing indigent defense, representation for members of the middle class and the poor, and the legal needs of the most vulnerable members of society.
On Sunday, The ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs presents a continuing legal education program entitled: “Is the Distress of Lawyers & the Profession Reversible? The Journey Back to Sense, Sensibility & Respect.”
At the meeting of the House of Delegates Monday and Tuesday, Access to Justice will be on the forefront as the House addresses by two “Civil Gideon” resolutions. Resolution 104, which would adopt the ABA Model Access Act, a model statute for implementing jurisdictions to establish and administer a civil right to counsel. Resolution 105 proposes that Association adopt “ABA Basic Principles of a Right to Counsel in Civil Legal Proceedings, urging federal, state, and territorial governments to provide legal counsel as a matter of right at public expense to low-income persons in those categories of adversarial proceedings where basic human needs are at stake, such as those involving shelter, sustenance, safety, health or child custody, as determined by each jurisdiction.
All this just scratches the surface. I’ll attend much of the Annual Meeting, and will try to keep you posted what I see as interesting or important.
Rich