2026 Program Book Now Available! | | The 2026 San Francisco program book is now available to download. You will find a welcome message from the program committee co-chairs, as well as a program overview, participant index, and much more! The program book is current as of April 22, 2026. Please use the online schedule or the app to find the most up-to-date information. | | |
Don't Sleep on Your Hotel Reservations!
Rooms are still available at the conference hotel, the Hilton Union Square, at the LSA group rate. Availability is limited, and our room block closes on May 1. We encourage you to book soon to secure your room.
| Download the LSA 2026 Annual Meeting Mobile App | |
SEARCH: The App Store or Google Play for “LSA Events”
or
SCAN: Use your device’s QR code scanner
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With the LSA Annual Meeting mobile app*, you can:
- Receive important real-time communications from LSA
- Stay organized with up-to-the-minute Exhibitor, Session, Speaker, and on-site Event information
- Build a personalized schedule and bookmark exhibitors
- Interactively locate sessions and view exhibitors on the venue maps
- Download and take notes on event handouts and presentations
- Find attendees and connect with your colleagues
- Stay in-the-know and join the conversation using social media with #LSACHICAGO2025
- Post your event photos and share your experiences on the Activity Feed
- And much, much more!
*The app is still getting updated and will include added features.
| | Fred Dubow Memorial Fun Run | |
Saturday, May 30th
6:00am
Hilton Union Square Lobby
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The annual Fred Dubow Memorial Fun Run will be held early Saturday morning on San Francisco’s historic Market Street, through Sue Bierman Park, and along the Embarcadero to Pier 7, where runners can take advantage of the nearby vista point to take in breathtaking views of the city skyline and the Bay.
San Francisco’s cool summer temperatures create the ideal conditions for a morning run, especially along a route that avoids the extreme hills found in other areas of the city. Don’t miss this opportunity to get some exercise, make some friends, and greet the beautiful Pacific Ocean.
Runners should meet in the Hilton Union Square lobby ahead of the start time.
| | LSA 2026 Plenary and Awards Ceremony | | |
Thursday, May 28th
4:45 pm
Continental 5 and 6
LSA Annual Meeting attendees are invited to the plenary, “Sanctuary,” followed by the 2026 LSA Annual Awards Ceremony and Welcome Reception on Thursday, May 28. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will open the event with a blessing, followed by a moderated discussion with UCLA Chicana/o and Central American Studies Professor Leisy Abrego and Yale Law Professor Monica Bell.
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Wednesday, May 27th
5:30 - 7:30pm
UC Law San Francisco
333 Golden Gate Avenue, 5th Floor
Please join the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS), Race, Immigration, Citizenship, and Equality (RICE) Center, and the Law & Society Association (LSA) for a film screening and discussion exploring the Sanctuary Movement that took root in the United States in the 1980s.
The movement, born in a time when the U.S. rejected the asylum claims of those fleeing U.S. funded wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, was, and continues to be a concrete form of resistance. This year, we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Refugee Convention during a time of unprecedented global abandonment of the obligation to protect those fleeing persecution. We come together at this moment to draw inspiration from the Sanctuary Movement, and the courage and conscience of those who have participated in it.
The event will feature a presentation by documentary filmmaker Theo Rigby, with excerpts from two of his films, and will include remarks by Karen Musalo, Ming Hsu Chen, Jose Artiga and Pastor Drew Paton.
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Thursday, May 28th
10:00 am
Plaza Room A
How do rules develop without centralized authority? Where do legal norms begin? This roundtable explores the genesis of autonomous legal orders.
Our starting point begins long before legalization in those spaces where actors must first create norms and rules that over time come to resemble law or lawlike structures. Consider the birth of international law, the launch of digital platforms like Wikipedia, or even the founding of new communities. Actors in these contexts create rules that come to resemble legal orders.
Participants will ask how law is born, who gives birth to it, and why, probing what law means and how it has come to organize society. Guiding questions include: How do informal rules become lawlike or "legal"? What distinguishes them from other forms of regulation?
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Thursday, May 28th
2:45 pm
Plaza Room A
This session reflects on the first 60 years of the LSA's journal, Law and Society Review, and speculates on the next 60. We review key pivot points in the history of the journal, focusing on what we consider some of the greatest hits and most impactful contributions. Then, we outline our vision as the new editorial team to maintain the journal's vibrancy while charting a course for a future in which the future of law itself looks uncertain.
In line with the conference theme, we ask what function the journal can play as a "sanctuary" for interdisciplinary scholarship in a world of renewed great power competition, climate and technological disruption, and the open question of whether the revealed fragility of the rule of law can open new spaces for those people, movements and ideas that have always been in law's shadows.
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Registration
Registration will be in the East Lounge during the following hours:
Wednesday, May 27th | 4pm - 6:30pm
Thursday, May 28th | 7am - 6:30pm
Friday, May 29th | 7am - 6:30pm
Saturday, May 30th | 7am - 6:30pm
Sunday, May 31st | 7am - 11am
| | Visit Our Book Exhibit Hall! | | |
The Exhibit Hall will be in Continental Ballroom 4 during the following hours:
Thursday, May 28th |12pm - 8pm
Friday, May 29th | 9am - 5pm
Saturday, May 30th | 9am - 5pm
Sunday, May 31st | 9am - 12pm
| | Thank You To Our Sponsors! | | | | |
