Resources for Making the Best Case for Conference Attendance

When economic times are tough and budgets are tight, it seems that nearly every expenditure receives additional scrutiny. Yet as you know, challenging times are no time to cut back on your professional development and training, or on important networking opportunities with colleagues on both sides of our profession. In fact, when times are tough, it is more important than ever to stay on top of current industry trends and best practices. Many NALP members already plan to attend the 2010 Annual Education Conference (April 28-May 1, 2010), but for those who need to seek authorization or funding to attend, here is some information that should help you make the strongest case for your attendance at the conference.

The NALP Annual Education Conference remains the single largest, most comprehensive, and most well respected educational program in our profession. The content provides much to choose from — more than 75 concurrent sessions, two plenary sessions, plus Saturday workshops. No doubt you are already aware of the conference’s value; now you may need to communicate this value as you request authorization to attend. The following documents provide important information to make your case for you or other staff members to attend the annual conference.

Advocating for 2010 NALP Conference Attendance
2010 Annual Education Conference Brochure (PDF)
Conference Registration
Why Puerto Rico?
Travel Tips
Comparing Hotel Room Rates with Past Conferences
Additional documents

Advocating for 2010 NALP Conference Attendance

Given the recent challenges in our profession as a result of economic shifts, it is now more important than ever to stay on top of current industry trends and best practices. For those who need to seek authorization or funding to attend, this document has some general tips that should help you make the strongest case for your attendance at NALP’s 2010 Annual Education Conference.

If you need to request support or authorization to attend the annual conference, think about doing it in writing. In addition to reviewing the tips below, you may use and tailor the sample memorandum (download MS Word file here). It will be important to outline the benefits of attendance, both to you and to your organization. It will also be helpful to estimate with as much specificity as possible the total costs of your attendance, and to quantify everything that is included in your registration fee. The NALP Annual Education Conference remains the single largest, most comprehensive, and most well respected educational program in our profession. You should review the full conference brochure (available here in PDF) in some detail, to gather more of the specifics supporting your request to attend the conference.

As you pull together your best case for you or other staff members to attend the annual conference, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Costs: You should try to estimate all of the costs involved, including the registration fee, airfare, lodging, meals, and other miscellaneous travel expenses. Research possible flight costs. Consider comparing those fares to the costs of flying to past conference destinations in your request. Remember that included in the conference registration fee are all three lunches, two receptions, and the Member Celebration. You may also mention that NALP has reduced the registration rate nearly 20% from the registration rate for the 2009 conference. At $595, this member base rate represents the lowest conference registration rate since the year 2000. This early  bird rate will be available through March 31, 2010. (In order to achieve the savings necessary to offer this rate, there will be some changes to the conference, the most noticeable of which is that breakfasts will no longer be provided as part of the conference registration fees. The main conference hotel offers a number of good options for breakfast, and members will be responsible for breakfast on their own each day.)

• Overview of who attends the conference: It may be important for you to provide an overview of who attends the conference. Conference attendees generally include law school and legal employer representatives from across North America, as well as many industry vendors and consultants. Attendees typically work in recruitment, professional development, and diversity management within legal employer organizations, and in career counseling, recruiting, professional development, public interest advising, and pro bono coordination at law schools. No matter what sort of institution they come from, most NALP members will find representatives of their peer institutions at the conference. The opportunity for law schools and legal employers to exchange information is invaluable, as is the chance to learn about innovative practices from other peer institutions.

• Benefits to your organization: You should be as specific as you can about the benefits to your organization. Once the conference brochure is available online, identify specific sessions that you plan to attend, and, if possible, relate them to current projects and problems that you are working on. You may also want to identify specific presenters, consultants, colleagues, or vendors whom you will have an opportunity to meet, learn from, and speak with. Finally, it may also make sense to highlight some of the networking opportunities the conference presents, such as the chance to meet staff members from schools or employers with which your organization seeks to develop stronger ties and connections. Remind your managers that even if your organization is not currently recruiting or engaged in as much OCI as usual, maintaining positive relationships is crucial; the conference offers an opportunity to meet representatives from numerous organizations all in one place.

• Professional development for you: It may be helpful to relate the conference content to any goals you and your supervisor have set for your own professional growth. List any skills or knowledge you expect to gain or develop from attendance. If you are a lawyer, you may want to indicate that the conference provides an opportunity to earn CLE credit.

• Coverage for your responsibilities: Depending on how your office is staffed, it may be important to think about, and even document, how your responsibilities will be covered while you are gone, or how you plan to stay on top of your responsibilities while you are away.

• After the conference: You should think about and explain how you intend to gather and then share information when you are back from the conference. You may want to offer to brief deans or partners on the conference highlights, as well as prepare summaries of particular programs or share handouts from specific sessions with other staff members on your team. Consider scheduling a time afterwards for a short presentation and Q&A to your colleagues on lessons learned. When you implement ideas gained from the conference, be sure to let others know.

You’ll have to figure out whether it makes sense to make your best case in person or in writing. In either case, don’t put it off – asking early will demonstrate how important this is to you, provide time for handling questions, and allow you to take advantage of “early bird” registration fees, advance purchase airfares, and the specially discounted conference hotel rates.

We look forward to your joining us at the 2010 Annual Education Conference. Don’t hesitate to contact the NALP office if we can provide any additional information or support as you make your plans to attend!

Why Puerto Rico?

Some members have suggested that the 2010 conference should be moved because of its location in the Caribbean. In fact, The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is home to three NALP member law schools and a number of important legal employers, and research suggests that actual travel-related expenses (e.g, airfare and hotel) for the San Juan conference should be comparable to prior conferences for most members. It is NALP’s policy to move the annual conference to different parts of North America where NALP members live and work, and because of the size of the conference, hotel contracts must be agreed to five to seven years in advance. Breaching those contractual obligations would cost the association a great deal of money in penalties. It is an incorrect perception that San Juan is only a resort destination. San Juan is a large city of nearly half a million people and is the capital of Puerto Rico. It serves as the island’s manufacturing, financial, and cultural center, and includes a number of historically significant buildings dating from Spanish colonial times. The conference planning committee looks forward to the rich cultural experience offered by this year’s conference site.

Travel Tips

Airlines with Travel to San Juan
Air Canada, AirTran Airways, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Northwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines, Sun Country Airlines, Sunwing Airlines, United Airlines, and US Airways all fly to San Juan. For a complete list of airlines that travel to San Juan with their connections click here.

Tips for Finding a Flight
Register for travel alerts from airlines that fly between your city of origin and San Juan (airport code: SJU).

• Register for travel alerts on one or more of the travel aggregator websites such as KAYAK, Expedia, and Travelocity.
• Consider searching travel websites on Tuesdays — that day is sometimes when discount fares are loaded into airlines systems.
• If you work at a law firm, look into whether you can use your firm’s credit card points toward the flight. Also consider talking with your firm’s travel agency — sometimes travel agents give free tickets for non-billable travel.
• Consider referring to one of the websites which purport to predict whether airfares will go up or down over time.

Sharing Flight Deals
If you find out about a great flight deal, please share it with other NALP members. You can e-mail information to your city group; announce it to a NALP e-mail discussion list; and/or e-mail it to info@nalp.org for NALP to consider posting on this page.

Comparing Hotel Room Rates with Past Conferences

Good news on hotel room rates!

NALP was able to renegotiate the contracts with the San Juan hotels and the base rate for 90% of the rooms available to members during the conference will be priced at just $216 plus local taxes of 9%, for an effective room rate of $236. This rate is lower than the rates available during the previous two conferences.

Effective Room Rates (Single or Double Occupancy Room & Taxes)

The main conference hotel in San Juan also offers a number of excellent opportunities to share multi-bedroom units that can lower the per person effective room rate even further.

Additional documents:

• Sample Memorandum (MS Word document)
• 2010 Conference Brochure (PDF)