My light blogging this week is easy to explain: I have been completely immersed in drafting a proposal to the Professional Development Committee of the Association of American Law Schools for a "Workshop on Transactional Law." This project started with a post on "Training Dealmakers in Law School" by Usha Rodrigues. That post inspired me to write a response, which included an off-the-cuff suggestion for a transactional conference (go to the end of the post). Darian Ibrahim followed close on my heels with another post endorsing a conference on transactional law, and we were off and running.

That was last October.

A number of people besides Darian and Usha responded to my suggestion for a conference, and we formed a drafting committee, which met for some preliminaries at the AALS Annual Meeting in January. Progress was slow during winter semester, but the power of deadlines kicked in on Memorial Day, and I have been researching and drafting ever since.

I will submit the proposal to the AALS later today. Here is the first paragraph:

This proposal describes a two-day workshop on transactional law to be held at a Mid-Year Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools ("AALS"). "Transactional law" refers to the various substantive legal rules that influence or constrain planning, negotiating, and document drafting in connection with business transactions, as well as the "law of the deal" (i.e., the negotiated contracts) produced by the parties to those transactions. Transactional law touches many substantive areas of law, but it is most closely identified with bankruptcy, business associations, contracts, commercial law, intellectual property, securities regulation, and taxation. The study of transactional law is attentive to the role of lawyers in consummating business transactions, thus implying some consideration of "transactional skills" – planning, negotiating, and document drafting. While business law clinics have been at the forefront of teaching transactional skills, this workshop will focus on transactional law as part of the non-clinical curriculum and in legal scholarship.

This is a popular idea. In addition to the 11 members of the drafting committee, the proposal has been endorsed by eight AALS Section Chairs or Chairs-Elect.

Thanks to all who participated in the drafting process. Now it's time for the AALS Professional Development and Executive Committees to do the right thing and authorize the workshop.

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