Business Law Section Newsletter

January 2024

Dear BLS Member:

It was great to see many of you in Orlando for the Winter meetings. As 2024 is in full swing I wanted to remind each of you of several things. 

First, the Federal Securities Institute is February 15-16 in Tampa. Please do everything you can to promote this event, especially within your own firms. This is the signature yearly event for the Corporations, Securities and Financial Services Committee. Thank you all in advance for distributing information about this fantastic seminar to everyone that would be interested in or benefit from attending. The shareable flyer can be downloaded here. The IP Symposium will follow on April 11-12, so please watch out for the registration for this event. 

Next, the registration for the out of state retreat in Scotland from April 3-7 (main trip in Edinburgh) and April 8-12 (post trip in the Scottish Highlands) is open and is filling up fast. If you want to attend, you can register at this link. We suggest you do so as soon as possible before all of the spaces are gone.

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Message from the chair, continued

Third, please remember that leadership is asking each substantive committee to create at least two (2) CLEs that are each one (1) hour in length between now and the end of June, 2024. Each attendee will pay to attend, however BLS members will have the benefit of lower pricing. These CLEs will provide a benefit to the rest of the bar by sharing the wealth of knowledge of our section members in many substantive legal areas. They also allow the BLS to showcase our members. Thank you in advance for creating these. And if your substantive committee has not yet done so, please designate a committee leader to be the liaison from your committee to the CLE committee.

Fourth, if you have not yet created the “playbook” for your committee, subcommittee or task force, please do so as soon as possible. This document, which in most cases we expect to be no more than one (1) to two (2) pages, will be very valuable for committee, subcommittee and task force members that are entering leadership or considering entering leadership. The document should describe the goals and mission of your committee, subcommittee or task force, describe the roles and responsibilities of each leader in your group and provide other useful information such as how the committee, subcommittee or task force fits into the structure of the section, how it relates to and interacts with other groups in the section and similar information. If you have questions about this “playbook” please contact me anytime.  

Finally, this is the time of year to begin thinking about the transition in leadership that will occur in July. Manny Farach will be following up with the leaders of committees, subcommittees and task forces about this and other subjects. However, if the leadership group in your committee, subcommittee, or task force has not begun discussing the new vice-chairs or second vice-chairs for the 2024-2025 bar year that begins July 1, 2024, now is the time to do so. If you want to discuss anything related to this area, please feel free to call me or Manny. 

Thank you for all you do for the section and looking forward to a strong finish to this bar year.

Mark Stein, BLS Chair