At AALS, Faculty Discuss Algorithm Regulation, the ADA, and More, Hoag-Fordjour Receives Bell Award
As the Association of American Law Schools conference heads into its final two days Friday morning, several more of the nearly two dozen faculty members attending the annual event, themed “Courage in Action” this year, will play key roles.
They will be speaking and moderators at panels on topics including family and juvenile law scholarship, the 25th anniversary of a pivotal Supreme Court ruling on the Americans with Disabilities Act, the debate over regulating algorithms, transcending faculty hierarchies, and critical race theory. Professor Alexis Hoag-Fordjour, co-director of the Center for Criminal Justice and Dean’s Research Scholar, will receive the prestigious 2025 Derrick A. Bell Award.
Here is the lineup for Friday and Saturday.
Professor Saskia A. Valencia, a legal fellow at the Disability and Civil Rights Clinic, will join a panel on “Works in Progress in Family and Juvenile Law” at which early-stage scholars will present their work on a variety of family law topics. (Session details, aals.org)
Professor Christina Mulligan will be a panelist at the “Federalist Society Annual Faculty Conference Panel: Regulation of Algorithms.” As algorithms shape the news stories individuals see on social media, dictate how artificial intelligence answers prompts, and even decide whether applicants get a job interview or mortgage, the panel will look at claims of how this has led to race, gender, and viewpoint discrimination and simultaneous concerns that government regulation might impede innovation. The panelists will explore the wisdom of efforts to regulate algorithms and how best to frame concerns about algorithmic errors and bias. (Session details, aals.org)
Professor Prianka Nair will speak at a session on disability law, in an event co-sponsored by Law and Mental Disability and Law Professors with Disabilities and Allies titled, “The 25th Anniversary of Olmstead.” In 1999, the Supreme Court held in Olmstead v. L.C. that the unjustified segregation of persons with disabilities violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. On its 25th anniversary, the panelists will reflect on the impact integration has had on those with disabilities and explore creative new ways it has been used recently, particularly by the U.S. Department of Justice. (Session details, aals.org)
On Friday afternoon, Professor Alexis Hoag-Fordjour co-director of the Center for Criminal Justice and Dean’s Research Scholar, will receive the prestigious 2025 Derrick A. Bell Award and deliver remarks. The Minority Law Teacher’s Section of the AALS established the Derrick Bell Award to honor a junior faculty member who, through activism, mentoring, colleagueship, teaching, or scholarship, has made an extraordinary contribution to legal education, the legal system, or social justice. (Session details, aals.org)
Professor Irene Ten Cate, associate professor of legal writing and co-director of the Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law, will moderate the AALS Arc of Career Program titled, “Transcending Law School Faculty Hierarchies.” The program looks at how professors can transcend the American law school structure through which faculty are categorized based on the courses they teach: doctrinal, clinical, legal writing, academic support and research. Presenters discuss how to change lanes, straddle tiers, or jump tracks that persist in the legal academy. (Session details, aals.org)
Professor Shirley Lin will participate in a discussion titled, “Critical Race Theory: Cultivating Courageous Pedagogies and Praxes to Protect our Democracy.” Building upon the concept that CRT’s power lies in its ability to explain how race and the law produce and maintain systemic racism, Lin and co-discussants including Kimberlé Crenshaw (UCLA School of Law) and Marbre Stahly-Butts (CUNY School of Law) will delve into ways to support each other in teaching CRT, its history, and the implications for our democracy. These efforts include the guide that Lin co-edited in fall 2024, Resist/Defend/Reimagine Pedagogy: Legal Education Against Authoritarianism. (Session details, aals.org) Lin will also begin her term as Chair of the AALS labor relations and employment law section.
In addition, Professor Richard Winchester, who has joined Brooklyn Law School as a new professor for the spring 2024 semester, will be at AALS today to serve in his role on the executive committee for the AALS section on taxation. Winchester, who was previously teaching at Seton Hall University School of Law, is a national authority on small business and federal employment tax policy.
As the conference wraps up on Saturday, three additional professors will be featured.
In the early morning, Professor Danielle Tully, who teaches legal writing, will join a work-in-progress panel, “Balance & Well-Being in Legal Education,” for which she was selected from a call for papers. She is working on a follow-up paper to a previous work, Behind the Curve: Rethinking Norm-Referenced Grading in First-Year Legal Writing Courses, that will be published this spring in Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute. That article reports on a 2022 survey and a 2024 study of publicly available law school grading policies. (Session details, aals.org)
Professor Robin Effron, a Dean’s Research Scholar, will participate in a session titled, “Conflict of Laws.” The panel will focus on consent, which is one of the primary ways in which courts gain personal jurisdiction but which has gained little attention from the Supreme Court in recent years, until 2023, when the Court revisited the boundaries of consent in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern R. Co. Effron will be one of the panel experts on personal jurisdiction and consent who will discuss that case, as well as the past, present, and future of consent to personal jurisdiction. (Session details, aals.org)
On Saturday afternoon, Professor Naveen Thomas will present a forthcoming article on contract theory, selected from a call for papers, at a works-in-progress panel organized by the AALS section on business associations. (Session details, aals.org)