Charles Alan Wright

It has been my usual practice in my President’s Letter in the Spring issue of The ALI Reporter to comment on the Annual Meeting that is about to take place. This year, however, in the Winter issue I have already talked about what is before us at The Mayflower in a few weeks. I explained then why it is that this year’s meeting will be only three-and-a-half days, rather than our usual four days. As I said then, this is a fluke that happened when several major projects had just finished and others will not have anything to be taken to the Annual Meeting this year. This has never happened before in the 42 years I have been a member of The Institute and we all will do our best to prevent it from happening again in future years.

In the Winter issue I told you about the topics that will be on the agenda in Washington. And the meeting will have other special events, more fully described elsewhere in this issue. Chief Justice Rehnquist will honor us by delivering an address at the Opening Session on Monday. We will also hear at Monday’s session remarks from the President of the American Bar Association, William G. Paul. And, for only the fourth time since the death of Judge Henry J. Friendly, the Henry J. Friendly Medal will be presented. I am looking forward particularly with pleasure to extending the award to Bill Coleman, who is one of the really great lawyers of our time. As we near the end of the Annual Meeting, the speaker at the Annual Dinner will be Lord Woolf of Barnes, who is Master of the Rolls of the Royal Courts of Justice.

Now I want to look beyond our meeting in May to tell you about something that will take place in July that I think will be of interest to many of you. The American Bar Association, as it does on rare occasions, is dividing its Annual Meeting this year. It is meeting first in New York and then reconvening in London. The principal theme of my presidency of The Institute has been the need for strengthening the international aspects of our work. We now have many more members from other countries than we had in 1993 and we have moved to having a significant number of projects with international aspects.

It was in keeping with my feeling that we should be more global in our outlook that I proposed having a reception, during the time that the ABA is in London, for our English members and for those of our members from the United States and elsewhere who are in London for the ABA meeting. Fifteen years ago when the ABA last met in London we had a similar reception to celebrate the election of our first group of British members, and it seemed especially appropriate that we follow that precedent this year in light of the greatly increased globalization of both our membership and our work. The Executive Committee enthusiastically agreed with the idea. My Council colleague, Roberta Ramo, who is heading the arrangements for the London portion of the ABA meeting, found what sounds as if it will be a very pleasant venue for the reception. We shall have the reception at the Army & Navy Club, 36 Pall Mall. The club is at the corner of Pall Mall and St. James Square. This club has been at its present location, in the midst of the most fashionable part of London, since 1854. And although the location goes back many years, I am glad to say that the club is air-conditioned. The reception will be from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. on Monday, July 17th.

The one problem I have had in organizing this reception is that I have no way of guessing how many of you will be in London and will be coming to our reception rather than to the many other things that are on the calendar during the ABA’s visit to London. The best guess that the other officers and I could come to was that we might have 200 people. The room we have reserved at the Army & Navy Club has a capacity of 250 and should be amply large for our reception. But we cannot know that. I would hate to issue a general invitation and have 600 people show up.

Therefore we have decided to have tickets for our reception and to issue only 250 tickets. These will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis to those of you who request a ticket or tickets. A member may request one or two tickets. You can make your request by e-mail to membership@ali.org, or by telephone to (215) 243-1666, or by mail to Membership, The American Law Institute, 4025 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19104.

I must tell you that some of the tickets have already been spoken for. We hoped to get as many of our English members as possible, so on April 7th I wrote to each of them inviting them to the reception. I said that if we received a request from one of them by May 6th, it would be honored. On April 8th I extended the same invitation to members of the ALI Council. As I write this, on April 19th, we have had requests for 44 tickets, so I expect that there will still be many tickets available when this issue of The ALI Reporter reaches you. Indeed our prediction is that this will still be true in July and that our room at the Army & Navy Club will comfortably accommodate all of our members from every part of the world who wish to come. But the course of safety is to make your request as soon as you read this.

I look forward to seeing many of you, and to meeting members whom I do not know.

Charles Alan Wright
President