Minutes of Conference Call 2: January 27, 2020

Minutes of the Law Division Leadership Council (LC) Conference Call

Topic: Division Activities, First Quarter

Date: Monday, January 27, 2020

Present: Paula Arturo, Admin.; Ana Gauz; Monique Longton; Sandro Tomasi

 

Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at approximately 2 p.m. EST by Paula Arturo.

Items on the Agenda

• Changes in Leadership and Recruitment Efforts

Heidi Cazes and Tony Rosado have left the LC and volunteered to be on the next division Nominating Committee (“NC”). When we get closer to needing to finalize the NC, we will send out an email asking for volunteers.

We recently sent out two broadcasts to all division members, one a call for volunteers and one a call for webinar proposals. We have gotten just one webinar so far, which the administrators and Education Sub-Committee are evaluating. We have also had a couple of volunteers. Trinha Thai volunteered to help the Events Sub-Committee and Abdulsattar Kordy and Naomi Sutcliffe volunteered to help with the Journal Sub-Committee. Paula mentioned that we should come up with some criteria for selecting people to serve on certain Sub-Committees based on whether they are qualified or not.

We do not have any volunteers yet for the Social Media Sub-Committee, which is one area where we need serious work (see below).

• Sub-Committees and Project Heads

We have someone in charge of every sub-committee except for Social Media.

• Education Survey 

Sandro reported that he will incorporate additions he received, and we should have it ready by the end of this week. Paula mentioned that once we have the information from this survey, we can use the results to support our proposals for webinars to the ATA Board.

• Webinar Proposals

ATA’s Continuing Education Committee has asked if the Law Division would be interested in co-sponsoring some webinars. Some benefits of this include: the budget is pre-approved (we don’t need to get Board approval) and ATA pays its usual webinar fee; we can include the Law Division logo in the slide deck; one of us can host the webinar (and give a small plug on our division); we can use every ATA communication channel to promote the webinar. Paula could not think of any disadvantages. No one present expressed any disagreement. Paula stated we will try conducting one webinar using this method and we can evaluate how it goes and if we want to continue doing so.

• Monique’s Proposal

Monique reported that she has not drafted her proposal on the “legal toolbox” yet. Paula stated she would reach out to the ATA Secretary to see if she has a sample proposal. Monique expressed that she has been negotiating several data protection agreements with clients and found the process very difficult, so she will wait to see how some of the negotiations go before preparing the proposal, so she estimates the end of February.

• Journal Proposal

Paula reported that she is planning to meet with new LC member Graciela Isaia on February 7 and they will have a draft journal proposal for the LC to review by February 21. Graciela directs a journal in Buenos Aires, which she just had indexed, so she has invaluable experience.

• Website/Blog Revamp

The Division’s new webmaster is Mara Campbell. Liz is in charge of the blog and will email the LC in the near future with some of her ideas. As part of the redesign, we can use stock photos that Paula has access to; she will provide a link and asks anyone to let her know about photos they like and would like to include. Any ideas for the website are greatly appreciated and will be passed on to Mara, who plans to start working in early February.

 

Upcoming:

 

• Distinguished Speaker (DS): second quarter

The Division has proposed Fernando Cuñado as our Distinguished Speaker for the 2020 Annual Conference. Fernando plans to present jointly with his partner Ruth Gámez. The ATA has a rule that we cannot propose to Distinguished Speakers, so they suggested we propose one as the DS and one as co-presenter. Paula explained this situation and they decided on proposing Fernando as the named DS. ATA has been in touch with them about preparing their proposal.

• Nominating committee: third quarter

As noted above, we already have Heidi and Tony, and will hopefully get at least one additional volunteer to be on the next NC.

• Social Media

We don’t have any volunteers for our social media and it is embarrassingly inactive. Any suggestions of members who could help running our Twitter or Facebook account are welcome. Paula mentioned a couple young members she and Ana met at the annual conference, Seth Philips and another, who we will reach out to.

Paula asked all LC members to provide input on what time would be best for all members for future Monday video conference meetings.

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 2:30 p.m. EST.

Submitted by

Elizabeth Herron-Sweet, Assistant Administrator