Minutes of the Law Division Annual Meeting (Virtual)
American Translators Association
October 9, 2021
Present:
Administrators
Elizabeth Herron-Sweet
Leadership Council
Grace Isaía
Division Members
Angela Chenus
Ann-Charlotte Storer
Jennifer Ottman
Sagrario Melo
Caroline Kim
David Stephenson
Ibrahim Alkhaldi
Dmitry Beschetny
Tony Rosado
Carol Shaw
- Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time by Elizabeth Herron-Sweet. She welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked them for their attendance.
- Approve minutes of last year’s meeting
Elizabeth informed those present that the division’s 2020 annual meeting minutes have been posted on the division’s website and they will be considered formally approved if no comments are submitted by October 31.
- Announcements for 2021 Annual Conference
Elizabeth informed that unfortunately our division’s Distinguished Speaker, Bruna Marchi, will not be able to attend due to travel restrictions, so the division will plan to invite her back for next year’s conference. She noted that there is a blog post on our website listing all the legal T&I sessions and that several other divisions’ Distinguished Speakers will be speaking on legal topics. She also reminded those present that the division will be hosting a networking lunch during the conference and that we are expecting around 10 division members to attend.
- Law Division Overview for 2021
Elizabeth provided an overview of how the Law Division has served its members in 2021.
With respect to educational sessions at the annual conference, besides nominating a Distinguished Speaker (after our very well-received DS in 2020) and providing feedback on conference session proposals, we posted several legal-related session reports from the 2020 conference on our blog, along with slides from those sessions.
With respect to our blog and website, Elizabeth noted that one of the division’s major challenges is recruiting writers for our blog and contributors to the events section on our website, and invited division members to contribute.
With respect to our online forum and social media, Elizabeth noted that we have fairly active listserv, Facebook group and Twitter account, but need more content, and asked members to repost relevant articles from social media, content from ATA news alerts and the Chronicle, and also to post their legal T&I-related questions. She also thanked Arnold Winter and Ana Gauz for being our group moderators.
With respect to other projects, Elizabeth noted that as of a few months ago, the ATA and the Law Division are now publishing partners of the International Journal of Law, Language and Discourse, meaning that we help promote calls for papers, select papers and promote the journal. Paula Arturo is a representative editor of the ATA. Everyone is welcome to submit academic papers, but they are peer-reviewed so we cannot guarantee that ATA members’ submissions will be published.
- New Business for 2022
Elizabeth noted that she and assistant administrator Monique Longton will be forming a new Leadership Council and asked for volunteers.
Regarding ATA63, she noted we will be inviting back Bruna Marchi as Distinguished Speaker and encouraged division members to submit the proposal form online or ask the division to invite potentially excellent speakers.
With respect to division plans for the coming year, Elizabeth noted that her main plans as administrator are to strengthen our core services and better organize leadership, including having a calendar and checklist of tasks for administrators, defined roles for the LC and better structure for taking on volunteers. This is challenging because everyone has so much going on in terms of work and other commitments, but hopefully if we can divide up tasks and have things clearly defined we can get a little more done and spread out the work a little more.
She concluded by asking for writers for the blog, suggestions for our website, participation in our social media, ideas or volunteers for webinars and articles for the journal partnership. She also mentioned the possibility of a virtual networking event in 2022, as one of our core services as a division is to provide “professional interaction and networking.”
- Questions from Members and Closing Remarks
Several members asked to be added to the division listserv and one member, Caroline Kim, volunteered to help plan our division’s event at ATA63 as she is a Los Angeles native.
Elizabeth thanked all for attending the meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 12:58 p.m.
Submitted by
Elizabeth Herron-Sweet, division administrator
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