The American Bar Association House of Delegates will convene its semi-annual meeting on Feb. 5 in Louisville, Kentucky, to conclude the ABA 2024 Midyear Meeting with 31 resolutions on its agenda, including a measure that would require for the first time ABA-approved law schools to have free speech policies.
January 29, 2024 Top Legal News of the Week
ABA House caps Midyear Meeting Feb. 5 with full agenda
The 597 delegates of the policymaking House, known as the HOD, will also be asked to address resolutions that oppose government encroachment in matters of educational materials, urge the expectation of privacy for transgendered and other students, and provide access to medical services for emergencies, regardless of state laws limiting such care. The House, which represents ABA entities and state, local and specialty bar associations, meets at 9 a.m. EST at the Kentucky International Convention Center, 221 S. Fourth St.
The Midyear Meeting, which runs from Jan. 31 through the end of the HOD session, is packed with programs exploring legal measures to achieve a more equitable U.S. justice system, celebrations of champions of diversity and timely topics such as qualified immunity and gun control.
The new free speech standard for ABA-approved law schools would require schools to adopt a policy that would allow faculty, students and staff “to communicate ideas that may be controversial or unpopular, including through robust debate, demonstrations or protests,” and would forbid activities that disrupt or impinge on free speech. But it wouldn’t impose specific policy language. The Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, which serves as an independent arm of the ABA, is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as the sole accreditor of 196 U.S. law schools.
HOD proposals do not become ABA policy until approved by the House. The next HOD meeting is scheduled for early August in Chicago.
Related links:
- 2024 ABA Midyear Meeting
- House of Delegates resolutions
- Selected resolutions:
- Proposed free speech standard for law schools
- Opposes restrictions on group-based teaching materials
- Supports medical services to address emergency conditions without limitations
- Embraces written guidelines for actions raising prosecutorial misconduct
- Privacy for transgender and nonconforming students
- Endorses the Summary of Recommendations and Guidance from the Report and Recommendations of the New York State Bar Association Task Force on Advancing Diversity
- Approves the Uniform Collaborative Law Rules and Uniform Collaborative Law Act
- Proposed free speech standard for law schools
- ABA Journal stories referencing past ABA Midyear Meetings