ABA Day in Washington

For members in or near the D.C. area this week, don't forget ABA Day in Washington will be taking place Tuesday evening thru Thursday. "Hot topics" of particular interest to LSD/YLD members include loan forgiveness for public interest attorneys and the continuing effects of Hurricane Katrina.

If you have questions about on-site registration, please contact Julie Strandlie at (202) 662-1764.

As the semester draws to a close...

I want to take this opportunity to wish the best of luck to all our student members during finals and congratulations to our 3L members (including yours truly) who will soon be graduating!

While the AT still has a full calendar of events and activities during the summer, I know many of you will be joining me in preparing for the bar exam in your favorite jurisdiction. Many of us will be testing at the end of July, making this year's annual meeting in Hawaii an extra special treat to look forward to. Key meeting dates:

• AT will be at the Halekulani Aug 5-6
• LSD at the Ala Moana Aug 2-6
• YLD at the Sheraton Waikiki Aug 3-6.

(Before you balk at how expensive a trip to Hawaii sounds, do yourself a favor and check the ABA negotiated rates for hotels and airfare. You might just find a deal that costs even less than a trip on the mainland - I did!)

Although my term as LSD-AT Liaison will end at the conclusion of the annual meeting, I am happy to let you all know I have accepted AT Chair-Elect Joseph Angland's offer to serve as Vice-Chair of the Membership & Equal Opportunity Committee during the next bar year. Whether you are in the LSD, YLD, or an experienced practitioner, if you have any questions about AT membership or activities, I will continue to be available to help, along with the rest of the AT leadership, my successor as LSD Liaison, YLD Antitrust committee members, and staff.

I will be looking forward to the opportunity to meet, congratulate, and celebrate with many of you in Hawaii in August. Until then...

Aloha

Enroll now for the next bar year and get 4 months FREE

Law students should have recently received information about the LSD's membership drive. If you enroll now for the 2006-07 bar year, you will get the next 4 months of member benefits FREE. In addition, some entities have dropped their dues requirements for next year, so you can try even more sections, forums, and divisions starting at less than $2 a month. Enroll today!

54th AT Spring Meeting wrap-up

The AT Spring Meeting closed Friday with the Chair's Roundtable Conference with Enforcement Officials. We heard from FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras; U.S. Department of Justice AAG of the Antitrust Division, Thomas Barnett; Chair of the NAAG Multistate Task Force, Robert Hubbard; and European Commission Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. This was the first time the EC Competition Commissioner participated in an ABA Antitrust meeting which drew a record number of attendees, especially for international practitioners and enforcement officials.

After their remarks, Michael Egge (Latham & Watkins), Debra Pearlstein (Weil Gotshal & Manges), and Allan Van Fleet (Greenberg Traurig) joined AT Chair Don Klawiter (Morgan Lewis & Bockius) in asking the officials about recent developments and likely emphasis of future enforcement activity. It was certainly interesting to hear the responses from the top antitrust enforcement officials in the world to questions from some of the top practitioners in the country.

On a personal note, I took advantage of being in D.C. during the Cherry Blossom festival and stayed for the weekend to take in the sights and sounds. It's a great way to end a busy week of sessions, learn more about D.C., and enjoy the great weather. Some things to keep in mind if you're new to D.C. and want to stay afterwards next year:

• METRO Rail is great for getting around town. Get a daily pass for only $6.50 and you'll have unlimited use of the system until closing. If your bags are manageable, you can take the train in from Reagan National airport, passing by the Pentagon and Arlington cemetery on the Blue line.
• If you're lucky, you can get an unbelievable deal from [an online travel site] at a certain 4-star hotel just across the street from the ABA DC office, a block away from McPherson Station on the Blue/Orange Metro Line, and just a couple blocks away from the White House Visitor Center (this saved us a lot of time getting tickets for the Spring Garden Tour first thing Saturday morning).
• Later closing hours for some attractions begin in April due to Daylight Savings, e.g., you can leave a Smithsonian museum at closing and still make it to the zoo to see the Pandas.
• Plan ahead for a White House tour by submitting your request well in advance
• You CAN see the fireworks on the waterfront from the Kennedy Center terrace
• Bring VERY comfortable walking shoes

Can you tell I'm already planning for next year's Spring meeting?

Problems with abanet.org aliases

ABA members are able to use an email alias service that will forward messages sent to theirname@abanet.org to another address. When the service has problems, however, the messages received at the alias address are not queued, and the senders of such messages have no idea there is a delivery problem. This is a bit unusual because, normally, you would expect an NDR (non-deliverable report) when a sender's server has trouble delivering messages. That means that during this past weekend's outage, anyone who sent email between ~mid-morning Friday to ~lunch Monday has no idea there was a delivery problem. The recipients have no idea messages were sent to them. *NOT* something you want to have happen if you're using an ABA email alias for important communications.

if you were expecting important e-mails during this period, please arrange for your email to be resent to your attention at this time.