Register now for ELA's 2020 Annual Conference

The Education Law Association's (ELA) 66th Annual Conference will be held virtually, but this will not be a test of your passive on-screen endurance! We are confident that we will deliver virtually the kind of engaging, insightful, and fun experience ELA attendees have come to expect over many years.

ELA's Annual Conference attracts hundreds of scholars and practitioners in the field from all over the U.S. and Canada and a number of other countries. This uniquely diverse gathering draws attorneys, professors, education leaders and administrators, graduate and law students, educators, public officials, consultants, reporters, and other stakeholders from the worlds of PK-12 and higher education; public, private, and charter sectors; colleges of education and law schools; plaintiff- and defense-side; labor and management; and more. It's an extraordinarily welcoming and collegial gathering that offers the richness of programming that ELA's diversity and cross-fertilization make possible. And we will capture what people most love about ELA in how we organize our interactions online.

For online registration, click here -- but please note: the conference registration page is not on ELA's website but is created by our support service, Indiana University Conferences, so instead of using your ELA login you will need to sign up as a New User of that site, on the left-hand-side.

Pricing: The conference registration fee for non-ELA members who are not students is $309, but discounts are available to ELA members ($219), first-time ELA Annual Conference attendees who are ELA members ($119), students ($69 for ELA members, $109 for nonmembers), and ELA members aged 65 and up ($189). There's an extra $20 discount for registrants who simultaneously join ELA, past members who rejoin ELA, or current members who renew their membership for an additional 12 months. Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit is available for attorneys.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

ELA is excited to announce our keynote speakers for 2020, Randi Weingarten and Mark Walsh!

Randi Weingarten is President of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which represents teachers; paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; higher education faculty and staff; nurses and other healthcare professionals; local, state and federal government employees; and early childhood educators. Prior to her election as AFT President in 2008, Weingarten served for 12 years as President of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), representing approximately 200,000 educators in the New York City public school system. She holds a law degree from Cardozo School of Law and worked for several years as a Wall Street lawyer before serving as counsel to UFT's then-President Sandra Feldman, taking a lead role in contract negotiations and enforcement and in litigation. After that she taught history at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood from 1991 to 1997. Ms. Weingarten will speak to us as one of the most prominent national voices in education debates during arguably the most tumultuous year for our education system in modern memory -- and, on Friday, Nov. 6., just three days after arguably the most consequential U.S. national elections in a generation.

Mark Walsh is an education law reporter for Education Week and its School Law Blog, as well as other news sources including SCOTUSblog and the American Bar Association's ABA Journal. He will once again present the ELA conference's annual Supreme Court Update, on Saturday, Nov. 7. Few reporters combine Mr. Walsh's knowledge of K-12 education with his knowledge and experience covering the courts, and fewer -- if any -- have education law as their assigned "beat." Mark's always informative and entertaining review of the past year, with a look forward to coming legal events, has been one of the most popular highlights of ELA conferences in recent years.

PRECONFERENCES

Four stand-alone preconferences are offered separately on Nov. 4, from 11:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern, with breaks, for $69 each:

• 2020 in Review: A Challenging Time in Higher Education Law, with Peter Lake, Stetson University College of Law
• Legal Ethics for Education Attorneys, with Lynn Rossi Scott, Jacqueline Stefkovich, and Pat Pauken
• The New Title IX Regulations in K-12 Schools, with Kathleen Conn and John Borkowski
• Special Education Law for Administrators (With Extra Focus on Florida), with Terry Harmon, Glen Stewart, Kimberley Spire-Oh, et al.

You can register for the conference now but log back onto the conference registration page later to revise your selections if you like.

OTHER PROGRAMMING

ELA's Annual Conference features an impressive array of panel discussions, breakout sessions, roundtables and poster sessions on a wide range of substantive topics as well as the teaching, study, and practice of education law. Check back for the entire program once it is finalized. If you would like to learn more about how the virtual poster sessions will work, please watch this ELA webinar; the slide deck from the webinar is available here.

In addition, ELA will provide ample opportunities for online networking, socializing, small discussions about shared interests, special opportunities for students and for first-time Annual Conference attendees, and recognition for excellence in different dimensions of the field through the bestowing of five annual awards. These things are among the hallmarks of ELA's Annual Conference, and we are working hard to capture all we can of them for our virtual event!

CRITICAL DATES!

• October 1, 2020: Presenters must confirm their participation by registering and paying the applicable fee for the conference by this date, barring extenuating circumstances that must be communicated to ELA by this date. This is necessary so that ELA can finalize and plan the virtual program.

• October 15, 2020: Presenters must submit a narrative paper or detailed outline, including legal citations, by this date. This is critical for our attorney attendees to be able to earn Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit for attending the session.

• October 28, 2020: This is the final date for a registrant to cancel conference registration and be able to obtain a refund of registration fees minus a nonrefundable $25 deposit for processing.