This discussion group examines the evolution of the SEC as a market regulator and how these changes fit within the agency's tripartite mission: ensuring investor protection, creating fair and orderly markets, and enhancing market efficiency. In the name of making the markets more attractive to public companies, the SEC has altered key long-standing rules or policies, such as its approach to shareholder proposals, mandatory shareholder arbitration, and corporate disclosures. This discussion group explores questions, such as: Are the agency's new regulatory priorities a reflection of its need to evolve alongside market changes? Do these changes conflict with or support the agency's mission? Who do these changes benefit: the markets, investors, public companies, or the agency?
This panel explores emerging trends and new developments in commercial and consumer law. Panelists present works-in-progress exploring a range of issues in the context of commercial and consumer transactions and litigation. Topics include the regulation of the sharing economy, the enforcement of non-alienation clauses in contracts, and uniform and new state legislation on commercial contracts.
As the landscape for reproductive policy and law shifts as a result of both emerging reproductive technologies and the Supreme Court's opinion in Dobbs, old frameworks are becoming irrelevant. This panel explores the new frontiers in reproductive rights and justice, while discussing strategies for legal advocates to meet the current moment. Participants reflect a range of issues within the reproductive law and policy space.
This discussion group will continue the conversation from previous years on how AI is impacting the legal profession. More specifically, this year, we will focus on how AI is impacting the law school classroom. Are students using AI to draft submissions for law school classes? If so, how, and are we able to accurately detect it? How are professors using AI? Is it a reliable tool we can use to create assessments? Is it a reliable tool we can use to review student submissions and generate feedback? This group will survey how far AI has come on these topics and will aim to offer guidance to professors on how they can use AI in their courses.
The academy typically focuses on federal civil procedure and the federal court system. But state courts and state court procedure are also crucial to access to justice in the American dual court system, a significance that has been increasingly recognized in the scholarly literature. This discussion group addresses noteworthy aspects of the dual American judicial system, first considering federal-court procedural developments, then addressing state courts and state civil procedure (what issues have come up, why they are important, what it means going forward), and finally contemplating the intersection of the two systems: what does federal procedure tell us about state procedure, and vice versa? 
The discussion group explores innovative ways to integrate real-world experiences into legal education. Bringing together educators, practitioners, and policymakers, it highlights approaches to teaching environmental, energy, and climate law, focusing on legal clinics, simulations, fieldwork, and community projects addressing sustainability challenges. The group also discusses the impact of the NextGen Bar Exam on doctrinal courses and the importance of collaboration among doctrinal, clinical, and legal writing faculty. Participants share best practices, trends, and case studies demonstrating experiential learning's effectiveness in preparing future lawyers to address complex global and domestic challenges, fostering a transformative shift in legal education for the 21st century.
This discussion group brings together business and criminal law scholars to discuss developments, noteworthy cases, and new ideas in corporate and white collar crime. Topics of discussion may relate to bribery and extortion, corporate compliance, corporate deferred prosecution agreements and non-prosecution agreements, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, healthcare fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, organizational sentencing, and securities fraud and insider trading. Discussants will leave the session with an understanding of recent developments in white-collar crime and approaches for addressing these topics in their teaching and scholarship.
