Legal Commentary

I'll confess that I have rarely attended the plenary (now "presidential") programs at past AALS annual meetings.  This year's sessions, though -- exploring variations on the annual meeting's "institutional pluralism" theme -- look very interesting.  As I've suggested here before, and here, I think this theme is an important one.  (For full descriptions of the three programs, go here.)

The first program, "Institutional Pluralism", will involve "a conversation about how institutional differences affect faculty and students, how they contribute to our intellectual life, and what effects they have on the other values our schools cultivate."  The second, "Religiously Affiliated Law Schools", will ask, among other things, "[h]ow, if at all, are these schools different from their secular counterparts? What effect might the religious commitments and beliefs of the sponsoring faiths have on subject matter, perspective, student life, academic freedom, admissions, hiring, and other issues? What do religiously affiliated law schools contribute to the legal academy and broader legal community?"

Finally, the third program, "Associational Pluralism", considers the recent "flourishing . . . of parallel organizations [such as] the Federalist Society, the Society of American Law Teachers, the National Association of Scholars, the Law Professors Christian Fellowship, and the American Constitution Society", and asks, "[d]oes this phenomenon signal that the AALS is not representing these points of view?  Should the AALS try to assimilate these groups, or make more of an effort to
accommodate them (without digesting them) in its own framework, or live with the status quo?"

These questions all strike me as interesting and important, and the line-up of presenters is excellent.  Perhaps we could start thinking about the meeting's themes, and these questions, early?  Thoughts?