[NOTE: Please welcome guest blogger, Michael J. Robak, Associate Director/Director of Information Technologies, Leon E. Bloch Law Library, University of Missouri – Kansas City. -GL]

The movement to establish a true Technology instruction track and andragogy (meaning Susskind, Kowalski, et. al.) in the legal academy is gaining real momentum.  As readers may recall, on March 16, 2016 the ABA TECHSHOW provided an opportunity for an Academic specific event tied to TECHSHOW which 3 Geeks generously allowed me to advertise.  This first ever Dean’s Roundtable, held at IIT Chicago Kent College of Law (which was enthusiastically supported and hosted by Professor Ron Staudt,), was incredibly successful and helped set the stage for creating an Academic track at the 2017 ABA TECHSHOW.

The event was so successful that the 2016 ABA TECHSHOW Chair, Steve Best, thought a second edition of the Dean’s Roundtable would provide an even greater opportunity for dialogue if it could be held in conjunction with the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco in early August for a West coast version.  Those who attended the Roundtable, including the first Roundtable’s generous sponsor, Thomson Reuters, thought a second event would be well worth creating.


And so we are announcing the Dean’s Roundtable Part 2 to be held at UC Hastings College of Law on August 4, 2016 from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. And I am pleased to announce Thomson Reuters is again generously sponsoring the event.


If you are at a law school in the San Francisco area or if you are attending the ABA Annual Meeting or if you are interested in helping build technology teaching or the ABA TECHSHOW Academic track please consider attending the Dean’s Roundtable Part 2 on August 4, 2016. 


And we particularly extend the invitation to practitioners, we need comment and recommendations from outside the ivory tower.

This is a free event and registration can be found here.

We hope to have in attendance a number of the members of the ABA Law Practice Division, including members of the Executive Committee, to create an even stronger dialogue about the “how and what” of teaching technology, particularly from those practitioners most engaged with serving as technology evangelists.  The second part of the dialogue will focus on helping design the academic track for the 2017 ABA TECHSHOW.  2017 TECHSHOW chair, Adriana Linares, is an avowed and immensely supportive proponent of the track and is working with her Board to develop the track.  Input from the Roundtable will be very important to getting this organized.

Besides the ABA TECHSHOW Academic track, there have been two other important developments in the month of July.  The first was a discussion that occurred in early July at the SubTech 2016 Unconference, hosted by the University of Richmond Law School (and thanks to Marc Lauritsen for organizing and Roger Skalbeck (and Dean Wendy Perdue) for hosting) the event for connecting law schools that have engaged in the substantive teaching of technology. During this unconference,   John Mayer, law tech dude extraordinaire, (where would we be without John!) sua sponte created a website to serve as a connector for those wanting to teach technology.  Among other services, the website will collect syllabi from anyone who wants to contribute.  If you are on the Teknoids listserv you’ve probably seen the conversation.

The second terrific development occurred during the AALL Annual meeting last week.  Elizabeth Farrell Clifford (who attended SubTech 2016) organized a flash meeting to discuss teaching technology.  This amazing event had about 30 people in attendance with another 15 or so expressing regret to Elizabeth they could not attend.  The meeting had each of the attendees discussing what they taught or planned to teach and clearly demonstrated law schools are recognizing the need to formally move in this direction.  The attendees unanimously supported the idea of creating an AALL Caucus focusing on teaching technology.  Elizabeth and I are moving forward on this proposal.

The half day conference Agenda is as follows:

8:30 a.m. – Registration
9:00 – 10:15 – Moderated Panel Discussion
Moderator – Dean Ellen Suni – University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law
Panelists:
Professor Oliver Goodenough – Vermont Law School
Professor Alice Armitage – UC Hastings College of the Law
Professor Dan Linna – Michigan State University School of Law
Professor Jeff Ward – Duke Law
Assistant Dean Bobby Ahdieh – Emory University School of Law School
10:15 – 10:30 Break
10:30 – 12 noon – Discussion Forum
The panel will lead a discussion with members of the audience to move toward consensus regarding the next steps for advancing teaching technology in law school and examining how the ABA TECHSHOW can be part of these efforts going forward.

12 noon – boxed lunch and further discussion
(Generously provided by Thomson Reuters)
 

Please feel free to email me (the man behind the curtain) with comments, thoughts, ideas or any suggestions.  There will most likely be a discussion about the Academic Track and this topic generally at the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) at the January, 2017 meeting in San Francisco.