Annual Education Conference 2010
Request for Proposals

NALP invites you to submit a proposal for the 2010 Annual Education Conference, which will be held on April 28 - May 1 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. NALP’s Annual Education Conference offers innovative and timely information through sophisticated educational programs presented by knowledgeable speakers. These educational programs cover an array of topics to meet the broad needs of NALP’s diverse membership. This is your opportunity to share your expertise and tap your creativity by developing an original program for presentation at the NALP 2010 Annual Education Conference. Proposals specifically tailored to meet the needs of the NALP audience are strongly preferred.

About NALP and Its Members
NALP’s members include virtually all of the ABA-accredited US law schools, most Canadian law schools, an Australian law school, and more than 1,000 legal employers. Audiences at NALP programs typically include legal career services professionals, recruitment/personnel administrators, and attorney professional development administrators, as well as management and support staff, hiring attorneys, counselors, training directors, diversity directors, law faculty, human resources directors, law school deans, assistant deans, bar representatives and legal consultants.

NALP members are key players in a highly complex, people-centered profession and are well informed about historical and contemporary topics and trends in legal education, recruitment and law practice management. Women outnumber men in the field of legal career planning and recruiting and, generally, as members of NALP audiences. There are both NALP members with JD degrees and members without them.

NALP members appreciate challenging topics and are noted for their high expectations. Like all adult learners, NALP members are eager to interact with those presenting information and especially appreciate educational programs that offer concrete ideas that can be adapted for and implemented in their organizations.

Breadth and Range of Topics Sought
NALP seeks a broad range of topical presentations for its annual education conference. Appropriate topic areas include (but are not limited to) entry level and lateral lawyer recruiting (including topics such as interviewing) and integration, law school career counseling, lawyer professional development and training, law student professional development and professionalism, law student public interest counseling and public interest lawyer career pathways, diversity (particularly programs that focus on sustaining women and minorities in legal careers), management, law firm economics and business models, the impact of the economy on the profession, alternative careers, judicial clerkships, research on lawyers and legal careers, and all areas of personal professional development.

In addition, for the 2010 conference, NALP’s president invites proposals for programs related to leadership and leadership development that will help prepare our members to take on the role of expert leader within their organizations. Proposals are sought for seminars in five key areas: organizational dynamics, management development, cross cultural communication, communication/presentation enhancement, and emotional/social intelligence.

Proposal Selection Criteria
Each proposal will be reviewed by the Annual Education Conference Planning Committee. The committee will review proposals based on:

• The extent to which the proposal targets and is relevant to NALP members
• Definition and focus of the topic
• Practical application of material
• Timeliness and importance of topic
• Overall program quality

Proposals should illustrate that the speakers will make every effort to present a balanced point of view in each program. When developing a panel presentation, speakers from multiple organizations and perspectives should be chosen.

In addition each program proposal should:

• Encourage active learning (indicate in the proposal how the audience will participate in the session instead of having them passively listen to information);
• Demonstrate innovative thinking;
• Contribute ideas for positioning NALP members as leaders within their organizations; and
• Present strategies for effective implementation of information learned once attendees are back at their offices.

Incomplete proposals will not be considered and all proposals must be submitted using this online system.

SPECIAL NOTE: Individuals submitting proposals with multiple speakers should contact everyone included in the proposal to verify their interest and commitment in participating before submitting the proposal. When contacting potential speakers, be sure to indicate that the program is in the proposal stage only, and that final decisions about program acceptance will be made by the conference planning committee, with notification after July 15th. If you have a situation where it is not appropriate to contact and confirm all possible speakers prior to submitting the proposal, you will need to describe those circumstances in the proposal. Preference will be given to proposals where all speakers are confirmed.

Requirements for Speakers

• All speakers must commit to the presentation of a program at designated times during the conference, from April 28 to May 1, 2010, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
• Speakers should grant permission for hardcopy and online distribution of supplemental resource materials.
• If you wish to distribute copyrighted information in your supplemental resource materials, it is your responsibility to obtain the necessary permission. Such materials will be distributed only if they are submitted with the publisher’s written permission attached.

Additional Guidelines for Consultants
We receive many proposals from consultants who offer valuable expertise and outside perspectives. Each year, the Annual Education Conference’s programming has demonstrated this group’s important contributions. At the same time, we tend to receive more proposals from consultants than there is space for, and often need to make difficult decisions in selecting amongst them. We encourage you to carefully consider both the above tips and the following:

• Successful sessions usually teach NALP members how to implement a program/service/etc., at their own organization, without necessarily hiring consultant assistance. Ultimately attendees might decide to hire an outside vendor, but that should not be the focus of the program.
• In some cases, consultants have successfully paired with NALP members to present a session. This is particularly effective when it gives attendees “how-we-did-it” advice from someone in their position.
• Ideally, proposals should reflect content targeted for NALP conference attendees. Proposals that appear to be an existing program for a different audience, such as practicing attorneys, are evaluated less favorably.
• To target your proposal and refine the topic focus, consider speaking with clients and/or past conference attendees to get their feedback.
• Participants do not react well to outright marketing of services during conference education. An indirect approach to marketing will be much more successful. A well-received session, where participants have gained from your particular expertise, is often the very best way of positioning yourself in the market.

Non-member Speakers - Travel Support
In lieu of speaker honoraria, limited travel funds are available for non-member speakers who are not with resource center exhibitors. Due to budget constraints, we encourage speakers to support some or all of their travel. The proposal form asks you to indicate the number of speakers who will request travel support funds. For planning purposes, this number cannot increase after program acceptance.

Important Dates

• May 22 – proposals due
• July 15 – all applicants will be notified about the status of their proposals
• April 3 – handout materials due
• April 28 - May 1, 2010 – Annual Education Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Your Next Steps: Links for Submitting a Proposal

Download a Word version of the submission form: The on-line RFP system does not allow you to save a copy of your work. We recommend you download a copy of the proposal submission form in Word and then type your proposal in word processing software. You can then copy and paste the text into the online system. This will allow you to save a copy of your work, in addition to using spell check and word counts. (Microsoft Word will give you an automatic word count if you select all of the text and then click on “tools” and select “word count.”)

Submit your proposal(s) online: All proposals must be submitted using the online system.

Descriptions for sessions in the 2009 Annual Education Conference brochure: If you are new to NALP and this conference, you may want to see which sessions were ultimately accepted and/or created for the 2009 conference.

Note: You are welcome to submit more than one proposal but must complete one on-line submission before beginning another.