2005 Annual Meeting

January 5-8, San Francisco. Check back here for more information.

2004 Post-Conference Follow Up

Click here to view and download materials from the annual meeting. To submit materials to be posted on this Web site, e-mail sprichard@aals.org.

The Association as a Learned Society

The Association of American Law Schools is an organization whose members are law schools and simultaneously is the learned society for U.S. law professors. As a learned society, the Association conducts programs for professional development and for the advancement of knowledge in the field of law. These aspects of the Association's activities have played an increasingly large role in the Association's work, even as the Association continues to pursue its other core values. Recent Annual Meeting themes have connected the Association's role as a learned society to technological development, globalization, and the distribution of legal services to promote equal justice for all. This year's theme turns the focus inward a bit, recognizing the wide range of scholarly activities in which law professors are engaged.

Recurrent reflection on the Association's activities as the learned society for U.S. law professors is the best way to ensure that the Association continues to provide a venue for law professors to pursue our common interests as scholars. The theme of this year's Annual Meeting is designed to encourage such reflection, in the Association's committees, among law faculty members involved in Association activities, and among law faculty members who should be encouraged to increase their level of participation in those activities. Our luncheon speaker will address the role of law schools in their university settings, and plenary session speakers will model academic presentations in allied disciplines. By offering demonstrations of the varied ways in which the Annual Meeting, and by implication other Association activities, advance the Association's mission as a learned society, the Annual Meeting sessions may promote further reflection on the role of law professors as scholars in the twenty-first century.

Mark Tushnet
AALS President and Georgetown University