The President’s Letter
Engagement
The American Law Institute has 4200 members. Since our founding, our members have participated in our law-reform work by attendance at Annual Meetings and involvement in project drafting through Adviser and Members Consultative Groups, as well as more informal groups as we explore potential areas for inquiry. In the initial stages of defining projects—such as the Restatement Third of the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration, headed by Professor George Bermann of Columbia, and Extraterritorial Application of U.S. Financial Regulations, headed by Acting Dean Howell Jackson of Harvard—and in our examination of issues relating to capital punishment and election law, participation necessarily must be limited to an invited group. The challenge for us is how to engage the large number of members who are now only occasionally involved in the Institute’s work.
The recent study of our membership concluded that, although many members are happy that they can increase their serious involvement with the ALI around specific projects that interest them, and others appreciate that at various busy times in their practice or personal lives they can remain interested members without specific portfolio, 64 percent of us would welcome a chance to become more engaged with the ALI in a meaningful way without having to travel. Further, many new members are looking for immediate opportunities to become participants in work apart from the Annual Meeting and in efforts to suggest new projects for us. Advisory groups cannot grow much beyond their current rolls without losing their effectiveness. While the Members Consultative Groups have no limit on membership, we understand that some part of our membership would like to be involved, but for a variety of reasons cannot attend MCG meetings in person. Others, given the particular projects on our table, do not find something that currently piques their interest. How do we find meaningful work for those of us who want to become involved, but are not?
Two recent events for members were even more successful than we had hoped, and they may give us part of the answer. As an experiment suggested by two of our members in the San Francisco area, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, Judge Jon Tigar, Jeffrey Bleich, Michael Brown, and James Donato hosted a Sunday afternoon meeting of younger members at the home of Judge and Matt Rogers in the Bay Area to meet one another and to meet and hear from Mike Traynor. Those who attended gave the event rave reviews. In New York, a recent reception after the International Commercial Arbitration meeting brought an enthusiastic crowd of our members to hear Second Circuit Judge Pierre Leval and to meet one another and Lance Liebman. Happily, all of us will be able to hear Judge Leval open our Annual Meeting on Monday morning, May 18, along with ALI members Tommy Wells, President of the American Bar Association, and Nicholas Katzenbach, who will receive the Friendly Medal.
In 2009 and 2010, we will try to schedule several other regional project meetings and receptions for members in those areas, so that people can get to know one another better and meet some of the leaders of the particular projects and of the Institute. But the more substantive question I have, for those of you who are not currently working in our framework at the level you would like, is: What do you suggest? I mean this very seriously. In the last several years we have made significant changes that modernized our governance; we adopted the use of Principles projects for subject areas in which Restatements are not quite right (for example, Family Law in the past and Aggregate Litigation and Nonprofit Organizations now underway); and we will in the next 12 months try some new methods in dealing with election-law issues and one or two other areas such as financial regulation.
In response to my questions last quarter, many of you responded with really helpful ideas in areas concerning technology. As we get past the Annual Meeting, we will take a hard look at how we can use technology to make us a more effective organization. However, we are not sure, after hearing from so many of you via the survey and individual conversations, that we have even begun to figure out how to engage our membership in a way that advances our work, strengthens the ALI, and makes membership in the ALI more meaningful to those of you looking for more. Unlike the ABA or some of the subspecialty legal organizations, we have few committees. Our work is the production of substantive legal writing with the goal of clarifying or reforming the law.
So I ask you to tell us: If you were to design ways to engage our distinguished membership more meaningfully, what would you do? Is allowing more people to work on our drafts via electronic participation enough? Do you think that we should regularize moving our meetings around the country? Should we do quarterly call-in teleconferences with a Reporter from a project to give you updates in the area? Are you interested in meeting with the ALI members in your area more often and in having visits from the leadership or from ALI members doing interesting work in their own practices that could be shared? Should we sponsor some CLE training programs focused around our current projects? Are there ways you think we could improve the Annual Meeting experience for those of you who can come? What am I completely missing about any or all of this expressed desire for engagement?
Our goal is to find 21st-century ways to make use of the vast talents of our members without disturbing the important parts of the ALI culture that earn us the high regard in which our work is held in the United States and abroad. It seems only smart to ask what ideas you have to achieve our goal of more meaningful member engagement. Let me know via email at president@ali.org or by letter if you prefer, addressed to President Roberta C. Ramo, The American Law Institute, 4025 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. None of this will be done overnight, and in these difficult economic times, cost is of course an element in what change we can make and how fast we can make it. I hope you will take the time to think about this and respond, and to find me during our reception in Washington on Monday night, May 18, to talk about this and other issues that are on your mind.
And speaking of the Annual Meeting, in addition to the substantive projects on our agenda, let me note again what sterling speakers we have: Helaine Barnett, President of the Legal Services Corporation, who will address us at lunch on Tuesday, May 19 (the first Legal Services lawyer to speak to our Annual Meeting), Secretary of Homeland Security (and longtime member of the ALI) Janet Napolitano for the Annual Dinner Tuesday night, and Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, ranking member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, at lunch on Wednesday, May 20. A significant value for each of us is the opportunity to meet one another, to participate in discussing our substantive agenda, whether in our own area of practice or not, and to hear from the leaders of our profession on the issues of the day. I look forward to seeing you and hearing your ideas.
Roberta
Roberta Cooper Ramo
President