Find the current due dates on Program Proposals.

Symposium programs are full-day or half-day programs that focus on an in-depth scholarly exploration of a topic of academic interest. The Committee encourages symposium organizers to arrange for the publication of the papers in a journal or edited volume.

Program guidelines

Who may propose a program:

Programs may be proposed by full-time faculty members or administrators at AALS Member or Fee-Paid law schools. International faculty, visiting faculty (who do not retain a permanent affiliation at another law school), graduate students, and non-law school faculty are not eligible to submit proposals but may serve as presenters.

Proposal Contents:

  • The program title.
  • The names and contact information of the program organizers.
  • A detailed description of the proposed program, including (a) the format of the proposed program, (b) an explanation of the overall goal of the program, (c) a description of how diversity is achieved by the program’s speakers, content, and/or structure, and (d) if applicable, an indication that one or more speakers will be selected from a call for participants.
  • Names of speakers to be invited including their full names and schools with links to or copies of their curricula vitae. The number of speakers should be limited to three (or a maximum of four) plus one moderator and should include a diversity of law schools, viewpoint, gender, race, and years of experience.
  • An abstract of no more than 750 words about the Symposium program and its anticipated contribution to legal scholarship.
  • A 250-word-or-less abstract for each proposed Symposium paper.
  • An indication of whether the request is for a full-day or half-day Symposium.

Program organizers should take the AALS core value of diversity into account when developing their proposals and identifying speakers. Relevant diversity considerations include but are not limited to speakers’ gender; race; years of teaching experience; faculty status (i.e., junior/senior faculty, tenured/tenure-track/clinical/non-tenure-track faculty); type of law school; geographic location; and viewpoint. To further viewpoint diversity in programming in particular, proposals should include speakers who will represent a range of philosophical, ideological, doctrinal, and methodological perspectives on the program topic as framed.

Selection criteria

In reviewing Symposium proposals, the Committee will consider the overall quality of the program, including whether:

  • The program is likely to be of interest to Annual Meeting attendees;
  • The proposal is well written and thoughtfully constructed; and
  • It includes presenters who further the diversity goals described above.
  • The quality of the paper abstracts is high.
  • It is likely that the resulting papers will substantially contribute to the scholarship in the field.
  • The proposal successfully achieves diversity for each Symposium session and across the whole of the Symposium.

Submission dates and the submission form will be posted on the Annual Meeting website by February. Questions may be directed to AALS Symposium.