I hope that you joined us for the Labor and Employment Law Section’s inaugural Annual CLE Conference in Philadelphia early in November. It was a great success, because an enormous amount of work by many talented and dedicated people was devoted to ensuring that this would be the preeminent CLE event for the practice of labor and employment law at all experience levels. The conference offered more than 70 CLE programs with the opportunity for practitioners to earn a year’s worth of CLE credit. The programs included the cutting-edge issues in the labor and employment arena, presented by a superb faculty. The conference co-chairs, Steve Gordon, Allen Gross and Howard Shapiro, worked non-stop for more than a year to put together this conference, and the results were evident. We owe them a debt of gratitude. We also want to thank the Section staff, whose input and execution was critical to the success of the conference.

The response to the conference by attendees (numbering over 1200) generally ranged from supportive, to grateful, to the very highest praise. Positive feedback focused on the very things that we thought would mark the conference as the best CLE available – programming for all experience levels and types of practice within the Section, a faculty of over 350 presenters that was second to none, planned networking opportunities, and a price that made attendance an easy decision to make. We also received constructive critical feedback that we will be responsive to. A highlight for many of us was seeing a diverse group of new lawyers who were getting to know the Section for the first time, since this was one of our goals. We were also pleased to welcome our Section’s more experienced members and those who have attended Section events and been active in its activities in the past. We had many law students in attendance, a special opportunity to spread the word about practicing in labor and employment law and to provide job resource opportunities for the students. We now know that this Annual Conference makes a lot of sense to Section members and to new practitioners who are looking for a Section “home”. I’ll tell you more about the Philadelphia conference in the next Flash.

Next year’s conference will be held in Denver, on September 10-13, 2008. Planning has already started with a planning session in Chicago on December 3 and 4. We are very pleased to tell you that the 2008 Annual Conference will be in good hands, led by Co-Chairs Allen Gross, Nora Macey, Rick Seymour and Howard Shapiro, and Vice Chairs Kelly Dermody, Gail Holtzman, Howard Rosen and Arlene Steinfield.

We also held our Section Council Fall meeting during the Philadelphia conference. One of the actions taken by the Council was a modification of the Section Development Fund fellowship conditions. Originally, the fellowships required a three-year commitment to attend the Section Annual Conference and a committee midwinter meeting. We decided that the yearly time commitment may be an impediment to participation, so we modified the commitment to require attendance at the Annual Conference and/or a committee midwinter meeting each year for three years, with the proviso that at least one year include attendance at the Annual Conference. Information about applying for fellowships to be awarded in 2008 is on the Section web page, including the criteria used for selection. Applications are invited. If you are in need of financial assistance for these Section activities, we encourage you to apply for a fellowship.