Immigration and access to justice will be hot topics as ABA Midyear Meeting opens in Houston
Image from Shutterstock.
Midyear meetings of the ABA tend to focus on the administrative business of the association and many of its entities, but when this year’s meeting opens on Wednesday in Houston, there also will be some notable substantive topics on the agenda.
Immigration, access to justice for persons of modest means and money’s influence on elections are just some of the issues that will be tackled by attendees in hearings and panel programs during the 2015 ABA Midyear Meeting, which runs through Monday, Feb. 9. This is the first time the ABA is holding one of its major association-wide meetings in Houston—the Annual Meeting is the other—since the 1981 Midyear Meeting. This year’s meeting is expected to draw more than 3,000 participants.
Public hearings will be held in Houston on two issues that are high on the ABA’s policy agenda. On Friday and Saturday, the Task Force on the Financing of Legal Education will hear testimony on how rising costs are affecting law students and schools. And on Saturday, the Commission on the Future of Legal Services will hear testimony how access to legal services might be improved through new innovations, including technology. The commission, which was appointed in August by ABA President William C. Hubbard, a partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough in Columbia, South Carolina, is planning to hold several more hearings and meetings across the country in the coming months, leading up to a National Summit on Innovation in Legal Services that will be held at Stanford University in May.
Immigration, which grabbed headlines over the past summer as Customs and Border Protection agents detained a record number of immigrant minors, is a recurring theme at the Midyear Meeting. On Friday, a program sponsored by the Young Lawyers Division will look at recent cases relating to unaccompanied immigrant minors, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and the Child Status Protection Act.
On Saturday, a program sponsored by the Special Committee on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities will explore the pros and cons of executive actions in immigration law, sponsored by the Special Committee on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities. Also on Saturday, the American Bar Foundation, the ABA’s research affiliate, will present a seminar examining the effects of immigration law on American communities.
Two programs will examine money’s influence on elections, a subject of ongoing political debate and attention from the courts. On Friday morning, the Standing Committee on Election Law will hold a town hall meeting on money and politics. In the afternoon, a program sponsored by the Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities takes on the perennial issue of money in judicial elections.
The 560-member House of Delegates, which sets policy for the ABA, will convene on Monday. Among the matters expected to come before the House are:
• A recommendation that would urge Congress to bring non-attorney “tax preparers” under regulation by the Treasury Department.
• A recommendation encouraging law schools and bar associations to offer debt counseling and management education to young attorneys.
• Recommendations calling for a unanimous jury vote for execution before the death penalty can be imposed in a case; and transparency requirements for departments of correction regarding the death penalty and execution protocols.
• A recommendation urging governments to appoint counsel for unaccompanied minors in immigration-related hearings, create specialized court calendars for immigrant minors and related steps.
And in one of the House’s midyear meeting rituals, the delegates will be officially introduced to the selection of the Nominating Committee for ABA president-elect nominee. It’s a given that the nominee will be Linda A. Klein of Atlanta, the managing shareholder in the Georgia offices of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, who is running unopposed. In August, the House will vote Klein into the position of president-elect during the Annual Meeting in Chicago, and she will automatically become president in August 2016 for a one-year term.
• View the 2015 ABA Midyear Meeting calendar (PDF)
• Download the 2015 ABA Midyear Meeting mobile app
