Scalia to speak at State Bar’s Annual Meeting Sept. 11-14

Registration has opened for the State Bar’s upcoming Annual Meeting in San Diego, which will mark only the second time in recent memory the event has featured a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Photo by Shawn Calhoun, USF

The 87th Annual Meeting takes place Sept. 11 through 14 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Diego and will feature 143 Continuing Legal Education seminars on topics ranging from legal technology to access to justice, the unauthorized practice of law and attorney advertising.

Among the highlights of the four-day event will be the State Bar luncheon on Thursday, Sept. 11, featuring a conversation between Professor Bryan Garner and Justice Antonin Scalia, the longest-serving justice on the Supreme Court. Garner is a leading legal lexicographer and distinguished research professor of law at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. Anthony Kennedy, the keynote speaker at the 2010 Annual Meeting, was the only other U.S. Supreme Court justice to make an appearance at the meeting.

Attendees of the luncheon will receive a copy of Scalia and Garner’s book, “Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts.” A book signing will follow the lecture. Those who would like to attend are encouraged to buy their tickets early, as spaces are limited.

Along with social events and the Annual Meeting Exhibition, the largest legal trade show in California, there will be a number of other prominent speakers including newly retired California Supreme Court Justice Joyce L. Kennard. On Saturday, Sept. 13, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye will administer the oath of office to the president and incoming members of the State Bar’s Board of Trustees and the California Judges Association’s Board of Directors. The ceremony will also feature remarks by Cantil-Sakauye and the new presidents of both groups.

Annual meeting attendees will also have the chance to earn up to 18 hours of MCLE credit and legal specialization, including credit in all MCLE subfields.

For more information, including hotel reservations, go to the Annual Meeting page at http://www.calbar.ca.gov/AboutUs/AnnualMeeting.aspx. The cost for a regular four-day pass is $475. It’s $355 for attorneys licensed licensed after Sept. 1, 2009 and non-attorneys. Two-day meeting passes are $325. Pre-register by Aug. 13; prices will go up $100 after that.