As artificial intelligence, generative search tools, and advanced legal databases reshape how lawyers find and analyze legal authority, law professors face a critical pedagogical challenge: how do we teach students the enduring fundamentals of legal research and citation while preparing them for a technology-driven profession? This group will explore topics such as integrating technology without eroding critical thinking, maintaining academic integrity in the AI era, designing assessments that measure both process and accuracy, and updating citation pedagogy for digital workflows._x000D_ _x000D_ Attendees will gain practical ideas for classroom exercises and ethical discussions that help students master both the "how" and the "why" of research and citation in a changing profession._x000D_
This discussion group addresses the Trump administration's policies on global climate change. It considers how those policies are affecting a wide range of regulatory and nonregulatory programs, including environmental regulation, securities laws, energy law, public land management, international agreements, grant funding, and research. Participants present short works in progress or summaries of current issues in each of the many areas impacted by the dramatic changes in policy adopted by the Trump administration and participate in a comprehensive discussion of these changes.
This session examines how law schools integrate leadership development and professional identity formation into the first-year curriculum. The discussion explores why the 1L year is uniquely formative for students' values, habits, and sense of professional purpose, and how faculty can engage this work within the constraints of a traditionally structured and carefully guarded 1L curriculum. The session offers practical insights for faculty and administrators seeking to strengthen leadership and professional identity outcomes in the foundational year of legal education.
Even before the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the law governing reproductive rights and justice was in a period of flux and change. The Dobbs opinion poured gasoline on a fire - and the legal regimes that govern human reproduction are changing quickly and in real time. Legal issues that arise out of the reproductive process can include elements of constitutional law, family law, civil rights law, and health law, among others. Participants in this discussion group will discuss the myriad ways that the law in this area has - and continues - to change._x000D_
This discussion group aims to bring together professors who teach in the fields of consumer law, commercial law, and/or bankruptcy to share best practices for teaching and assessing our students. Topics include: final exams, midterms, and other assessments; written projects; simulations; drafting exercises; and other modes of teaching and assessing students. Professors of all levels of experience are encouraged to share their experiences and expertise. The scope of this discussion group is intentionally broad and participants may touch upon any matter related to teaching and assessing consumer law, commercial law, and bankruptcy.
This discussion focuses on two pieces of the Administration's efforts against the legal profession. First is the executive orders targeting various law firms, the effects on those firms that settled, and the status of litigation involving those firms that challenged the orders. We sought to include an attorney from one of the firms that has challenged the orders. Second is efforts to target attorneys who litigate against the government, from a DOJ policy to pursue Rule 11 sanctions against plaintiffs' lawyers to a federal perjury indictment against a plaintiffs' lawyer for allegedly lying during a sanctions investigation. This group explores how these efforts affect the legal profession, particularly those who pursue constitutional and civil rights litigation.
This discussion group unites diverse perspectives to explore challenges and opportunities in agriculture. By integrating disciplines like law, trade, ethics, and innovation, the panel addresses critical issues such as protecting farmers' rights, evolving animal law, the effects of international trade, and food sovereignty's role in sustainable development. Topics include ethical considerations, technological advancements, and policy frameworks essential for navigating transformation. Panelists will offer insights into fostering global and domestic collaboration to build equitable, sustainable agricultural systems while tackling climate change, biodiversity loss, and food security challenges, driving meaningful progress for a sustainable future.
This panel will discuss new, emerging, expanding, or changing topics for employment law and employment discrimination courses. Potential topics include dealing with challenges to employee free speech; attacks against diversity initiatives; changes in federal labor and employment agencies; potential changes to the McDonnell Douglas framework and disparate impact claims; developments in pregnancy and disability accommodation law; the impact on employment of the current immigration crackdown; and restrictions against non-compete and retraining agreements.
This panel addresses current challenges and struggles for health equity under the Trump Administration. The panelists explore various aspects of health equity and the difficulties in achieving equitable aims in light of recent legislative and regulatory decisions. More specifically, panelists examine how health inequities have been exacerbated by cuts to biomedical research, mechanisms for addressing and responding to health inequities through medical-legal partnerships, and health inequities as it relates to the migrant population.
Ordinarily, criminal conduct that causes more harm should be punished more harshly, whether for reasons of retribution or deterrence. According to some recent estimates, the annual economic loss attributable to white collar crime is at least 20 times greater than the economic loss attributable to every other sort of crime. Yet despite the outsized economic effects of white collar misconduct, many commentators question whether it has victims, or whether it should count as a crime at all. This discussion group will weigh the relative moral, economic, and social impact of "White Collar" versus "Street" or violent crime, while addressing questions like: Are there victimless crimes? Is violent crime worse than financial crime? How should scarce law-enforcement resources be allocated?
This workshop gives faculty the opportunity to present a work-in-progress and to receive substantive feedback on their work from scholars with varying degrees of experience in the academy who write in similar or related fields. Each participant both submits their own work and reviews that of their fellow participants in advance of the meeting, leading to a more interactive exchange of ideas. Unlike other works-in-progress programs, the participants in this session are chosen from a request for submissions.
This workshop gives faculty the opportunity to present a work-in-progress and to receive substantive feedback on their work from scholars with varying degrees of experience in the academy who write in similar or related fields. Each participant both submits their own work and reviews that of their fellow participants in advance of the meeting, leading to a more interactive exchange of ideas. Unlike other works-in-progress programs, the participants in this session are chosen from a request for submissions.
This fourth annual SEALS cannabis law discussion shifts focus from speculating on uncertainty to identifying signs of maturation. After more than a decade of state-level adult-use legalization, some doctrines and administrative practices have achieved relative stability, even as the future of federal prohibition remains ambiguous. The session considers which aspects of cannabis law might be called "settled"; identifies accepted practices in licensing, compliance, and enforcement; and explores whether these lines reflect true success or uncomfortable compromise. Invited discussants include cannabis industry and drug policy scholars as well as those working in overlapping areas of administrative, constitutional, criminal, and agricultural law. All participants and perspectives are welcome as we collectively synthesize insights on the transition from responsive to established law.
This panel examines the ways in which bankruptcy law employs, recognizes, and sometimes reshapes enforcement mechanisms, fiduciary obligations, and doctrinal limits to influence the conduct of parties across a wide range of contexts. Panelists will consider the function and implications of contempt of court as a tool for ensuring compliance with court orders; the evolving fiduciary duties of nonprofit directors and officers navigating Chapter 11 proceedings; and the continued relevance of charitable-immunity and public-trust doctrines and how they intersect with modern bankruptcy practice.
The participants on this panel explore conflicts between traditional notions of sex and marriage and the diverse lived experiences of people navigating partnership, sex, and sexuality. It brings together scholars authoring papers with differing views on these issues. Participants explore both domestic and international approaches to a range of topics within this sphere, including--and going beyond--marriage, marriage promotion, and divorce.
With artificial intelligence driving change across the legal profession, this panel invites a return to the bedrock of legal practice: rigorous analysis, ethical authorship, and the irreplaceable human judgment that defines lawyering. Under the theme "The Time-Tested Lawyer: Tradition Meets Technology," we explore how foundational skills in legal analysis are being reimagined--not replaced--in a digital age and how it relates to professional identity formation. Panelists will reflect on how technology can enhance--but never replace--the lawyer's role as interpreter, advocate, and ethical actor. Expect a lively conversation that bridges tradition and innovation, reminding us that the future of law still depends on the wisdom, values, and discernment of its practitioners.
This past year has seen a significant increase in threats to workers' ability to speak, both while at work and off-the-clock. Workers, including university professors, have been disciplined or fired for engaging in speech--particularly related to current events--that their employers don't like. This discussion group explores the legality of some of these cases, the legal protections that exist for private and public-sector workers, and what the future may hold for workers' right to speak without losing their job.
In broad terms, U.S. domestic tax policy since 1981 has reflected an effort to reduce the federal tax burden, especially on capital. Taking a long view, resulting reductions in funding for many public and quasi-public goods have reduced total social wealth, which in turn has contributed to a smaller tax base and larger federal deficits. In response, Congress has continued to cut spending in an effort to manage the deficits, apparently unconcerned about the relationship between funding these goods and maintaining the tax base over the long term. The discussion focuses both on specific areas in which the trend is significant and on whether and how the trend can be reversed in the foreseeable future.
This discussion group explores a variety of legal topics addressing current hot topics in health law, bioethics, disability, and public health law, including tort reform at the state level, funding of biomedical research, scope of practice issues, health technology, health insurance coverage and benefits, GMOs and bioengineered foods, Medicare Advantage and the state of managed care models, social drivers of health disparities, vaccine policy, Medicaid buy-ins, and regulation of drugs such as cannabis and psychedelics as therapeutics.
This group facilitates discussion among doctrinal and clinical professors about the tools and strategies they use in their family law (and related) classrooms. Special focus is afforded to building students' practical lawyering skills, drawing connections from family law to the broader law school curriculum, new approaches to teaching traditional family law topics, methods for incorporating non-traditional topics in family law courses, strategies for incorporating scholarly literature and other critical perspectives on family law, and approaches that bring into the classroom discussion issues faced by families from diverse backgrounds.
Name, image, and likeness (NIL) law has transformed college sports from an amateur activity to a professional moneymaking activity for college (and high school) athletes. Consequently, along with tremendous financial opportunities comes important legal challenges that students, their families, their colleges, and society must understand and grapple with. The recent ABA publication, Game Changer, provides case studies of many of these legal challenges. This discussion group will explore the legal challenges that college athletes face during the lifecycle of an NIL deal. It will suggest the role legal counsel can and should play in NIL dealmaking. Ultimately, it will recommend changes to NIL laws to protect college athletes from exploitation in executing NIL contracts.
As artificial intelligence tools become increasingly sophisticated, legal education faces fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of scholarly writing. This discussion group will explore how law schools can preserve the pedagogical value of student and faculty scholarship in an algorithmic age, addressing concerns about authorship attribution, academic integrity, and the ethical use of AI in legal research and writing. Participants will examine how faculty can meaningfully evaluate student work when AI assistance is prevalent, consider whether traditional scholarship requirements still serve their intended learning outcomes, and discuss how both students and faculty can generate and recognize authentic intellectual contribution.
