The conference will take place from Friday, April 23— Saturday, April 24, 2027. Friday will begin around 9:00 am and include dinner from 6:00 to 7:45 pm. Saturday will start at 8:30 am and end at 1:00 pm.
The agenda will be added soon. In the meantime, here is a preview of the conference panels.
Panel 1: What Do Seriously Injured Clients Want?
What does the academic literature say? What do plaintiffs’ lawyers hear? What did plaintiffs themselves believe?
Panel 2: Nuts and Bolts — How to Secure Injunctive Effects
Which cases are ripe for injunctive effects? How do you get a defendant to agree? What are the key stumbling blocks? How do you enlist experts to help? How do you ensure that changes are practical and meaningful?
Panel 3: The View from the Other Side — How Injunctive Effects Can Assist Defendants and Insurers
When does a nonmonetary term unlock a stalled mediation, satisfy a carrier, or give a general counsel cover to make a change that would otherwise involve layers of red tape? And when defendants refuse, what is really the stumbling block—and how can it be overcome?
Panel 4: Unlocking the Information-Forcing Effect of Tort Law
How lawyers can and should resist secret settlements and obtain critical safety-related information, consistent with their ethical responsibilities under Rule 1.2(a).
Panel 5: The Psychology of Reform: The Power of Change and the Costs of Silence
Why securing a change promotes recovery. And the opposite: what happens to people who are paid to be silent? Discussion of NDAs as a source of ongoing psychic injury, isolation from other victims, and the sense of having been complicit in the next person’s harm.
Panel 6: Making Altruistic Relief Part of the Lawyer’s Toolkit
If a lawyer discovers a danger that will hurt others, what does she owe her client, and what does she owe the stranger? When should lawyers raise nonmonetary relief with clients? How can they explore broader objectives without imposing their own values? What if reform costs the client money? What do professional-responsibility rules permit or require? Should firms build altruistic-relief questions into intake, counseling, and settlement practice?