The process of disbursing funds from the Section Development Fund and increased participation by members eligible for financial support begins when eligible candidates apply for funding. We are extending the application deadline to July 1 , 2007, and you can find the application form linked here. Please consider applying yourself or passing the information on to someone you think would be eligible and interested.

At the International Labor Law Committee meeting in Rome, I learned that the issues we face as labor and employment lawyers are not so different country to country but that the ways in which we choose to address them can be radically different based on our culture and history. Questions of religious accommodation, immigration and sexual harassment, which could have come from the front pages of the daily newspaper, engendered thoughtful and lively discussion. Globalization and creative responses from organized labor to outsourcing certainly gave me food for thought in my own practice. The fact that such intellectual pursuits took place in beautiful Roma certainly added to their luster, and I made sure to toss my coin in the Trevi Fountain to ensure a return trip. Next year, the International Labor Law Committee is branching out and will meet in Beijing...how exciting that will be, just months before the Olympics! The committee welcomes new members...check out its newsletter on the Section website and jump right in and join the committee if you are interested in international labor and employment law issues.

On our own shores, we honored our government lawyers with luncheons in Washington, D.C. in early May at the offices of the EEOC, NLRB and DOL, thanks to our Outreach to Government Lawyers Committee. Robert Canini and Stanley Zirkin, recipients of our 2006 Federal Labor and Employment Attorney of the Year Award, were in attendance at the luncheons as well and received well deserved congratulations. Nominations for the 2007 Federal Labor and Employment Attorney of the Year Award are being accepted now....you can submit nominations on the Section website.

Check out more exciting Section activities elsewhere in this edition of the LEL Flash....see you next month.

.

Pat Slovak