In this issue:
Ramo Elected President of The American Law Institute
 On May 19 the Council of The American Law Institute elected Roberta Cooper Ramo as President of the Institute. Ms. Ramo is the first woman to serve in that office in the Institute’s 85-year history. She succeeds Michael Traynor, who stepped down as President on May 21, the final day of ALI’s 2008 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., after eight years of service.
A shareholder in the law firm of Modrall, Sperling, Roehl, Harris & Sisk, PA in Albuquerque, Ms. Ramo received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her law degree from the University of Chicago. In 1995 she made legal history as the first woman elected President of the American Bar Association. Ms. Ramo was Chair of the ABA’s International Rule of Law Initiatives and is a member of the Major Case Panel for the American Arbitration Association and the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution’s National Panel of Distinguished Neutrals. In 2000 she was made an honorary member of the Bar of England and Wales and of Gray’s Inn. She is a Fellow of both the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and the American Bar Foundation. A member of the ALI Council since 1997, she served as First Vice President from 2004 to 2008.
Roberta Cooper Ramo receives a gavel representing her presidency from Michael Traynor at the close of the 85th Annual Meeting.
 The Council also elected Douglas Laycock as Second Vice President of the Institute. The Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, Professor Laycock earned his undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and his law degree from the University of Chicago. One of the nation’s leading authorities on the law of remedies and the law of religious liberty, Professor Laycock is the author of many articles, of the leading casebook on remedies, and of The Death of the Irreparable Injury Rule (Oxford Univ. Press, 1991), which won the 1991 Scribes Book Award. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has served on the ALI Council since 2001.
Allen D. Black, a member of the Philadelphia law firm of Fine, Kaplan and Black, R.P.C., was elected First Vice President after serving for four years as Second Vice President. ALI’s immediate past president, Michael Traynor, was elected Chair of the Council. Mr. Traynor recently retired from the law firm of Cooley Godward Kronish LLP, where he served for over 35 years as a partner in the San Francisco office. Each of the four new officers was elected to a three-year term.
The remaining Institute officers, whose current terms end in May 2010, are: Treasurer Bennett Boskey, who practices law in Washington, D.C.; Secretary Susan F. Appleton, the Lemma Barkeloo and Phoebe Couzins Professor of Law at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis; Director Lance Liebman, the William S. Beinecke Professor of Law at Columbia Law School; and Deputy Director Elena A. Cappella of Philadelphia.
Members Review Five Project Drafts at
2008 Annual Meeting
The Institute’s membership handled a substantial agenda at the Mayflower Hotel last month. A day-by-day summary of actions taken at the Annual Meeting follows:
Monday, May 19, 2008
In the Aggregate Litigation project, the membership approved Chapter 1 and §§ 3.01 through 3.16 of Tentative Draft No. 1, subject to the discussion at the meeting and to editorial prerogative. (Chapter 2 was included in the draft for information only.) The motions submitted in advance of the meeting were handled as follows:
- The motion by Alan Morrison to amend § 3.03 was withdrawn prior to the meeting based on an agreement between the proponent and the Reporters.
- No vote was taken on Allen Black’s motion to delete § 3.09(a)(1) after the Reporters agreed to revise this Section.
- The motion submitted by Larry Stewart to delete §§ 3.17(b) through 3.19 was discussed but no vote was taken. These Sections will be further considered by the Reporters and discussed by the project’s Advisers and Members Consultative Group and by the Council. The material is expected to be submitted at the 2009 Annual Meeting.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The membership approved §§ 325 through 365, § 375, and § 380 of Tentative Draft No. 1 of Principles of the Law of Nonprofit Organizations, subject to the discussion at the meeting and to editorial prerogative. (Sections 300 through 320 and § 370 of the draft were approved at the 2007 Annual Meeting.)
Tentative Draft No. 6 of Restatement of the Law Third, Restitution and Unjust Enrichment was also approved, subject to the discussion at the meeting and to editorial prerogative.
Outgoing ALI President Michael Traynor addressed the membership at the Annual Dinner on Tuesday evening. Click here to view a transcript of his remarks.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
In the Employment Law project, all motions submitted in advance and from the floor were defeated. There was insufficient time to discuss the entire Tentative Draft and no final vote on the draft was taken.
The membership approved the proposed amendment to Article 1 of the Uniform Commercial Code. The amendment replaces the choice-of-law rule in current UCC § 1-301 with the choice-of-law rule contained in former UCC § 1-105.
Tentative Draft No. 1 of Principles of the Law of Software Contracts was also approved, subject to the discussion at the meeting and to editorial prerogative.
Professor Robert Hillman of Cornell and Dean Maureen O’Rourke of Boston University, Reporters for Principles of the Law of Software Contracts, take in members’ comments at the Annual Meeting on May 21.
Did You Forget to Register?
Members who attended the 85th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., but failed to register at the registration desk should notify the ALI Membership Department in writing or via e-mail (membership@ali.org) of their attendance so that it may be officially recorded. (Preregistration is not sufficient for the official record of attendance.)
ALI Abroad…
The Annual Meeting may be over, but the Institute’s work continues as members of ALI’s leadership traveled this month to meetings in Florence, Italy (NYU Class Actions conference); Berlin, Germany (Transnational Insolvency); and Geneva, Switzerland (World Trade Law). The summer print issue of The ALI Reporter will report fully on those meetings and on forthcoming fall meetings. |
