The Section on Transactional Law & Skills has extended its deadline for paper proposals for its program at the 2022 Annual Meeting to Friday, September 17. Submissions can be sent directly to Megan Shaner at mshaner@ou.edu. I cribbed the following from a message she wrote to the section membership last week. (Thanks, Megan!)
The topic of the section's program this year is "Transactional Lawyering at the Intersection of Business and Societal Well-Being" and, according to the preliminary program for the conference, the program is tentatively scheduled for 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. on Friday, January 7, 2022. The first part of the program focuses on how to incorporate ESG issues and impact topics across the transactional curriculum, including in clinics and other experiential courses, as well as in doctrinal courses. The second part of the program consists of scholarly presentations to be selected from the Call for Papers set forth below. If you incorporate ESG, corporate social responsibility, impact investing or governance, or related topics into your scholarship in any way, you should consider submitting your paper in response to the Call for Papers.
CALL FOR PAPERS
AALS SECTION ON TRANSACTIONAL LAW AND SKILLS
Transactional Lawyering at the Intersection of Business and Societal Well-Being
2022 AALS Annual Meeting
The AALS Section on Transactional Law and Skills is pleased to announce a call for papers for its program, “Transactional Lawyering at the Intersection of Business and Societal Well-Being,” at the 2022 annual meeting of the AALS. This program will explore how ESG and broader societal considerations are increasingly influencing the flow of capital in the global marketplace, corporate governance planning, merger and acquisition activity and structures, as well as other transactional topics. The events of 2020, for example, have shifted the focus of business entity governance, equality and access in securities markets, and transactional planning and deal structures in significant and lasting ways – questioning whether current structures and systems are working well for all stakeholders and society more broadly. COVID-19 and social movements have broadened ESG efforts to include previously overlooked issues such as human resource policies (e.g., sick leave, parental leave), workplace health and safety, supply chain management, continuity and emergency planning, and diversity and inclusion hiring practices and training. In addition, proposals are being considered (and some adopted) to require gender diversity on boards of directors as well as additional disclosures related to human capital. This program will look at how transactional lawyering in a variety of contexts can address/respond to recent calls for increased consideration and balancing of ESG issues and impact topics.
The annual meeting will be held virtually from January 5-9, 2022, with the Section on Transactional Law and Skills panel scheduled for Friday, January 7, from 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (EST). In addition to the paper presentation, the program will feature a panel focusing on how to incorporate these topics and issues across the transactional curriculum, including in clinics and other experiential courses, as well as in doctrinal courses.
Submission Information:
The Section on Transactional Law and Skills invites any full-time faculty member of an AALS member school who has written an unpublished paper, or who is interested in writing a paper on this topic, to submit a 1 or 2-page proposal or full draft to Megan Shaner, Chair of the Section, at mshaner@ou.edu on or before September 17, 2021. Papers accepted for publication but that will not yet be published as of the 2022 meeting are also welcome. Please remove the author’s name and identifying information from the submission and instead include the author’s name and
contract information in the submission e-mail.
After review and selection by the Section’s Executive Committee, the authors of the selected papers will be notified in mid-September 2021. The Call for Paper presenters will be responsible for paying their registration fee for the conference.
Any inquiries about the Call for Papers should be submitted to the Section Chair Megan Shaner, University of Oklahoma College of Law, at mshaner@ou.edu or (405) 325-6619.
On behalf of the Section on Transactional Law and Skills
Chair: Megan W. Shaner (University of Oklahoma)
Chair-Elect: Eric Chaffee (The University of Toledo)
Past Chair: Matthew Jennejohn (Brigham Young University)
Members of the Executive Committee:
Andrea Boyack (Washburn University)
Patience Crowder (University of Denver)
Cathy Hwang (University of Virginia)
Jay Kesten (Florida State University)
Praveen Kosuri (University of Pennsylvania)
Greg Shill (University of Iowa)