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2013 Midyear Meeting Looking Forward: Legal Education
June 10 June 12, 2013 in the 21st Century
San Diego, California
Visit www.aals.org/midyear2013 Leo R Martinez1
The 2013 AALS Midyear Meeting will
take place Monday, June 10 through
Wednesday, June 12 in San Diego, CA.
The Midyear meeting consists of two
professional development programs:
Poverty, Immigration and Property
and Criminal Justice. Both workshops
include the One-Day Joint Program of
the AALS Section on Criminal Justice
and ABA Criminal Justice Section for
Legal Educators, Judges, Practitioners,
and Prosecutors. Regardless of which
program you register for, you can cross
attend all program sessions.
continued on page 11
Speech to the AALS House of
Representatives, January 6, 2013
I am a fortunate person. My fortune
can be best described by the number of
people who have supported me through-
out my career and have placed their
confidence in me as I embark on my term as President of the Association.
These people have all served a turn as President. They include Susan Prager,
Mary Kay Kane, Judith Wegner, Nancy Rogers, Rachel Moran, Reese Hansen,
Michael Olivas, and Lauren Robel. I follow a path blazed by them among oth-
ers. Because I am smart enough to recognize my good fortune, I will draw on
their wisdom to outline what will be my path in the coming year.
I begin with a short story. Some years ago in December, I was elected chair of
the KQED board of directors. Those of you who are fans of public broadcasting
know that KQED is one of the flagships of the public broadcasting system. In
the subsequent new year on a Sunday morning, before even presiding over the
first board meeting, I went outside to pick up the Sunday paper. I unfolded it
and there, in a Pearl Harbor Attacked size font in the San Francisco Chronicle,
was the headline KQED on the Rocks.2 Whoa.
KQED's critics were partially right. KQED and all of public broadcasting were
facing difficult times. Public funding was in doubt because of a hostile con-
gress, pledge and underwriting income were down, and many openly questioned
whether the model of listeners and viewers voluntarily contributing to a public
station was an outmoded model.
You'll forgive me, I hope, if I mention a sense of ddj vu. It does not require a
huge amount of effort to imagine Pearl Harbor Attacked size font on newspa-
pers (as if they didn't face issues) proclaiming Legal Education on the Rocks.
That said, it is worth noting that the legal academy has faced criticism since the
earliest days.
In 1879, for example, the ABA Commission on Legal Education & Admission
to the Bar stated [Law] schools.., must be brought into a closer sympathy and
1. Albert Abramson Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. I am grate-
ful to the many who provided both inspiration and substantive comments on this piece. These include my
friends and colleagues R. Lawrence Dessem, David Faigman, Mary Kay Kane, W.H. (Joe) Knight, Michael A.
Olivas, Susan Westerberg Prager, Lauren K. Robel, Reuel Schiller, Darien Shankse, and Judith Welch Wegner. I
also appreciate the ever sharp editorial eye of Katelyn Keegan, Hastings class of 2014. Despite all their efforts,
errors are entirely mine.
2. David Armstrong, KQED on the Rocks, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, March 3, 1996 at Al, retrieved from http://O-
hopac.uchastings.edu/docview/411194748?accountid=33497.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.aals/aalsnews2013&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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