Discussion Groups for the 2025 Annual Meeting are now accepting abstracts for participation.
Discussion Group sessions do not feature formal presentations; rather, the objective is to facilitate a lively and engaging scholarly discussion. Participants consist of a mix of the invitees identified in the original proposal along with additional individuals selected from this call for participation.
The submission deadline for all discussion groups is Wednesday, August 28.
The ABA Reexamines Faculty Employment Security and Status, and the Academy Needs to Pay Attention
The ABA is revising Standard 405, which prescribes security of employment and status requirements for full-time faculty and currently has separate provisions for tenure, for clinical faculty, and for legal writing teachers. The proposed new, more inclusive Standard would eliminate any hierarchy and give all full-time faculty members “tenure or a form of security of position reasonably similar to tenure and reasonably similar non-compensatory perquisites” as well as reasonably equivalent participation in faculty governance and voting rights. This Discussion Group will identify and discuss how issues relating to employment security and status have historically been treated and would fare under the most current ABA proposal.
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Critical Race Theory: Cultivating Courageous Pedagogies and Praxes to Protect Our Democracy
To date, more than 600 measures seeking to ban Critical Race Theory have been passed at state and local levels (UCLA-CRT Forward). Efforts to dismantle the hard-fought victories of the last century of social progress, particularly in the area of racial justice, make clear the importance of training the next generation of lawyers in the theories and practices of critical analysis in order to promote democracy. This Discussion Group focuses on the praxis of CRT, with a focus on exploring innovative pedagogical approaches and praxes that encourage law students to move from the theoretical to the practical, and will engage in a broader conversation with law professors and practitioners around the country about how to support each other in teaching CRT, particularly in jurisdictions where the state is banning CRT.
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Developing Courageous Leaders: Trailblazing and Diverse Approaches to Leadership Education for Law Students
Law schools must equip students who have the courage and character to tackle emerging challenges in the legal industry and beyond, and leadership development programs play a distinctive role in meeting these and other needs. This Discussion Group will highlight and discuss creative approaches to developing law students into good and effective lawyer-leaders by featuring programs that employ novel methods and approaches to leadership development.
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Oops, I Did It Again: Embracing Risk-Taking and Mistake-Making
Social scientists – and good common sense – invite us into an understanding that taking risks and making mistakes go hand-in-hand, but as lawyers, we tend to prefer risk-free risks. This Discussion Group will explore the joys of risk-taking and mistake-making.
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Teaching State Constitutional Law – Why, How, and Who?
The United States is entering a new era of state constitutional law urgency. State courts have preserved individual rights and liberties that are no longer subject to federal protection, and have continued to protect rights found only in state constitutions. Furthermore, state constitutions’ more malleable amendment processes may be used as tools to reach a new equilibrium regarding newly threatened civil liberties. State constitutional law has garnered increased attention among legal scholars, but this new urgency is not reflected in the law school curriculum. This Discussion Group will bring together leading national experts on state constitutional law to offer their views on why teaching state constitutional law courses is critical to the mission of every law school, how it can be taught, and who can or should teach it.
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The Parenting Professor Penalty: The Costs to Being a Parent in Legal Academia
Pregnant and parenting people, as well as those who are presumed likely to be pregnant or parenting in the future, face barriers, harms, and challenges in entering and being successful within the legal academy. These may include being less likely to be hired, retained, or promoted; wage gaps; discrimination; hostility or non-accommodation to parenting needs, loss of professional opportunities; and inequitable allocation of teaching and service loads. This Discussion Group builds on scholarship about how the race, gender, and caretaking responsibilities impact not only individual and collective experiences, but also legal education more broadly. This group will also engage with social science and legal literature on the motherhood penalty, maternal wall, the fatherhood premium or bonus, and how these concepts apply within the structure of legal academia.
Read the full description here.