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Monday, January 08, 2007
What's Wrong with the AALS Panels?
"Been to any good panels?" is, sadly, sometimes a laugh line at AALS. A lot of profs in attendance complain that this or that panel wasn't good, or that they didn't see any good panels listed in a certain time slot, etc. I'm not here to defend those negative vibes, just (1) to report on them and (2) to ask what an AALS Section can be done to avoid being one of "those panels." As the new Secretary of the Employment Discrimination Section, I'm receiving many emails from those with actual influence over such matters participating in the discussion about next year's panel, so I'd be curious if you have any thoughts on any of the following questions:
(1) What makes a panel bad?
(2) What type of title or description dissuades you from attending a panel?
(3) Is my premise wrong -- i.e., is the average panel pretty good, in which case perhaps the complaining I hear simply is defensiveness by those who (err, like myself) simply are disinclined to attend too many panels, whether for good or for bad reasons?
(4) Do people like any of the alternative panel structures, such as "call for papers" panels or "open source" panels (the latter being the ones not affiliated with any one section)?
Posted by Scott on January 8, 2007 at 09:26 PM in Life of Law Schools | Permalink
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This year marked my maiden voyage to the AALS in anything other than babysitting capacity, so my data set is paltry. Having thus completely depricated my own viewpoint, I will echo folks upthread and say that the panels that I attended that were based on calls for papers were better than the panels that I attended that were based on calls for big names.
Posted by: Deborah Ahrens | Jan 10, 2007 2:33:15 PM
I agree with Orin about getting people who disagree (intelligently and civilly). Also, I'm glad to see that the AALS has started experimenting with what most serious academic organizations do most of the time: issuing calls for papers that are then evaluated, instead of saying, "hey, I know so-and-so, he's a pretty big name, and he'll be good."
At the panel itself, moderators should sometimes be more aggressive about keeping speakers to their time limits (I often wonder whether folks giving papers ever practice to see if they can actually give it in their allotted time).
As to topics, in employment discrimination, there's always a decent possibility that the Supreme Court will have just decided some new case that people will want to talk about. On the whole, though, I think it's better to have several quality papers that, at minimum, people in the field would find interesting and ideally would attract some curiious folks from other fields.
Posted by: Joseph Slater | Jan 9, 2007 10:21:51 AM
I tend to disagree with Bill Henderson. I think most AALS panels are on the weak side precisely because organizers pick the the kind of panel they would like to attend rather than the kind of panel that the audience would like to hear. So if the organizer happens to specialize in French basketweaving law, the panel often will be "Developments in French Basketweaving Law" regardless of whether there is anything particularly interesting going on in that area.
My own two cents:
First, pick interesting people with interesting and different things to say. That is, pick interesting and engaging speakers and scholars who will deliver something good. This may seem obvious, but it's not: a lot of panels will pick from the list of people who happen to have written on the topic of the panel. Better to pick someone with interesting and fresh ideas who hasn't written on the topic than someone who has written on the topic a lot and will just repeat what they have said many times before.
Second, make sure people on the panel disagree with each other. Maybe this is just my contrarian bias, but the one line that I hate to hear at a panel is "I agree with everything said so far, and I just want to add one or two additional points." In contrast, my favorite line is "I completely disagree with my co-panelists, and here is why."
Posted by: Orin Kerr | Jan 8, 2007 11:57:48 PM
I was on a panel on the Military Commissions Act that seemed to keep the audience interested (or alert on a Friday afternoon, anyway), notwithstanding the fact that the topic was complex and that in some spots we were assuming a certain level of familiarity with the statutory, constitutional, treaty and habeas questions involved. (Of course, I will leave it to others to judge how informative, provocative and entertaining the panel was.)
To the extent it was successful, I think it was largely the function of two things:
(i) Our moderator, Bobby Chesney, chose to forego opening statements, and instead simply prompted us to answer some of the more difficult questions (as very artfully posed by Bobby).
(ii) Although the five of us were approaching the problem from very different perspectives (with some overlap, obviously), we didn't talk past one another (at least I hope it didn't seem that way): From all I could tell, all five of us clearly wanted to engage with the others (rather than simply to present our own papers or talking points), and to have our arguments tested and tweaked by others who had given those arguments serious thought.
All of which is to say that it was a genuine conversation -- credit to Bobby and Janet Alexander, who planned it that way.
At every law conference I've attended, such formats -- *if* well-moderated -- invariably produce richer and more interesting panels than the paper-presentation or "four opening statements" models.
Of course, if the discussion is poorly moderated . . . watch out.
Posted by: Marty Lederman | Jan 8, 2007 10:27:01 PM
Scott,
The best part of being an organizer is creating a panel that you would want to attend. So create a vision and sell it in the program.
Also, I think it worth scrutinizing the nature of the complaining. I notice that many people run down panels just by eyeballing the list of presenters; if none of the affiliations are schmooze-worthy, the panel gets skipped.
I have found no shortage of worthwhile panels. bh.
Posted by: William Henderson | Jan 8, 2007 10:09:14 PM
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