Minutes of the Law Division Annual Meeting
American Translators Association
Renaissance Hotel
Palm Springs, CA
October 25, 2019
Present:
Administrator (incoming)
Paula Arturo
Leadership Council
Heidi Cazes
Ana Gauz
Monique Longton
Tony Rosado
Sandro Tomasi
1. Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 4:45 p.m. by Paula Arturo.
2. Incoming Administrator’s Welcome and Remarks
Paula Arturo thanked the attendees for their presence and spoke about the Law Division’s creation, from the initial joint efforts of colleagues and friends among fellow translators and interpreters who wanted to have a place inside the large organization which is the ATA.
Paula thanked the members of the Leadership Council for their work over the past two years, asking present members to stand and acknowledging those who couldn’t attend this year’s Conference and meeting, especially Elizabeth Herron-Sweet, currently on maternity leave. She presented Elizabeth’s recognition for her service as Administrator, Elizabeth’s recognition for serving as Assistant Administrator, Amanda Morris’ as Administrator, and Ana Gauz’s for her help in forming the Law Division.
Ana Gauz asked for the floor and presented Paula Arturo the ATA’s recognition for her role as assistant administrator.
Paula mentioned the challenges presented by forming a new division and some of the shortcomings over the first two years. In our first year, because the LawD had not yet been formed, we had no distinguished speaker and were not able to evaluate sessions for the law track. In our second year, the LawD missed the deadline to propose a Distinguished Speaker. We had to ask for an extension, which was granted. But the Distinguished Speaker we ultimately proposed was rejected. The reason was that our nominated speaker had already been Distinguished Speaker several years before and the abstract submitted was similar to the one they had presented as a Distinguished Speaker in the past, which is against ATA’s policies.
3. Education Committee
Paula announced the intention to create an Education Committee and to offer two legal translation webinars focusing on hard skills this year.
4. Legal Translation Journal
Paula informed members of a plan to launch a peer-reviewed legal translation journal to be published biyearly. She would like to get submissions of academic articles on legal translation theory which would also include the practical aspects of legal translation. The division plans to reach out to universities for funding.
5. Social Media and Listserv
Paula mentioned the Law Division’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn accounts, as well as its listserv, and called for volunteers to help with moderating and content.
6. Leadership Council
Paula will be inviting some Law Division members to join the LC. For the future, a fair system will be implemented so that LawD volunteers will be able to join the LC if they so wish, for each 2-year term. The goal is to have an LC formed by members who are engaged and have ideas and proposals for the LawD. On that note, Paula introduced Monique Longton as a new LC member and informed the attendees of a proposal by Monique that will be, at a later date, submitted to LawD members and then to the Board, and to which interested members will have a chance to join and contribute.
7. Distinguished Speaker
Paula announced that Ruth and Fernando Cuñado, from Spain, will be the LawD’s proposed Distinguished Speakers for the ATA Annual Conference in 2020 and informed attendees that suggestions for Distinguished Speaker for 2021 are welcome.
8. Closing Remarks
Paula emphasized the need for ideas and for volunteers so that the LawD will be able to implement the discussed projects. She also mentioned an upcoming survey for LawD members for the purpose of gathering information such as number of members, their locations and specializations.
In the end, Paula invited attendees to make comments or questions. No remarks or questions were presented.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:06 p.m.
Submitted by
Ana Gauz, member of the Leadership Council
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