CALL FOR PROPOSALS

2025 Annual Conference 

CRAFT, CALLING, AND COMMUNITY

JUNE 9-11, 2025

University of Saskatchewan College of Law

uᓂvᐁrᓯᐟᕀ ᐅf ᓴᐢᑲᐟᒉᐊᐧᐣ ᒍllᐁgᐁ ᐅf lᐊᐤ

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

 ᓴᐢᑲᑐᐅᐣ ᓴᐢᑲᐟᒉᐊᐧᐣ

Deadline for proposals:  January 15, 2025

ACPD-CALT is delighted to invite members of the community of Law Teachers to our annual conference, June 9-11, 2025, hosted by the University of Saskatchewan College of Law on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis. 

At this conference, we aim to create spaces for discussion of the nature of our roles as researchers, teachers (including clinical legal educators), and practitioners. We also aim to discuss questions aabout community – who are the communities of which we are members, how do we engage with them, and how are they connected? We also intend to create opportunities to discuss the relationships between law schools, law teachers, and others including the broader university community, lawyers, and the public. 

In keeping with our theme, ACPD-CALT is making space at this event for discussions about learning, teaching, research, and the connections amongst them. We invite participants to submit proposals on any of the above areas across a range of themes, ideas, or subject areas. In particular, we wish to encourage participants to submit proposals for sessions that draw connections amongst learning, research, and teaching.  

As usual, our conference will include plenary sessions, awards, keynote speakers, parallel sessions, a social event or two exploring Saskatoon, and ACPD-CALT’s annual general meeting. 

The Canadian Law and Society Association/Association Canadienne Droit et Société’s annual meeting will take place at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law between 11-13 June 2025. The programs for both conferences will overlap on June 11 and will be coordinated to encourage full participation and exchange by attendees at both conferences

Information about registration, fees, accommodation options and more specific timings will be available in early 2025. We encourage attendees to book flights and accommodation early. 

The ACPD-CALT Conference Committee is grateful to our local organizer Professor Heather Heavin, Associate Dean Academic, who has welcomed us to Saskatoon. Thanks are also due to Dean Martin Phillipson of the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan, who has enthusiastically supported this conference, and Katie Richard, Events Coordinator, who has been very helpful with planning and logistics. 

Languages and interpretation

All sessions can be held in either English or in French.  Mixed language sessions are also welcome.  Depending on the degree of interest or need, we will explore options with respect to simultaneous interpretation for one or more sessions at this conference. 

In-person event

This is an in-person event. Remote access to in-person sessions will not generally be available at this conference. Having said this, conferences are only one way through which we connect as ACPD-CALT members. In addition to our annual conference, ACPD-CALT has a track record of planning successful online events (see, for instance, the online event organized by Professor Anna Lund in September 2024 on “Getting a Job in a Canadian Law School”). We plan to host one or more additional online events during the 2024-2025 academic year. Please reach out if you would like to discuss any ideas related to online events. 

Have an idea, but worried it isn’t quite ready? Talk to us!

Reach out!  The ACPD-CALT Executive would be happy to talk to you about panel, roundtable, and workshop ideas that aren’t quite finished.  We will work with you to develop the idea and identify possible participants.  Or, we can publish open invitations to join roundtables in our newsletter. We’d be delighted to work through your thoughts with you. Email us at [email protected]. 

Graduate Students

This conference will feature a graduate student roundtable at which graduate students will be invited to engage in discussion about research and teaching. Participants will share ideas on, including but not limited to, research informed/based teaching, how research work contributes to the production and dissemination of knowledge and, how research is a form of learning. More information will follow. Graduate students can be members of CALT and are invited to both join proposals and to develop their own. 

Childcare

While ACPT-CALT will not provide childcare during the conference, children (including infants) are welcome to accompany presenters and participants, and to share in the conference food and beverages at no cost. As well, we will ensure that at least some of the suggested and planned activities will be suitable for families and children. We will also ensure that our list of recommended accommodation options includes accommodation that is suitable for participants traveling with children. Limited funding will be available to assist with costs related to child care, including to assist with the cost of caregivers accompanying participants with children. Further details will be available in early 2025. 

Proposals: Themes & Formats

We are interested in proposals for complete (all participants are already confirmed) or partial (with space for more participants) sessions of 1.5hrs. We encourage you to reach out to colleagues at different institutions and career stages to generate possibilities and build a community of practice which can come together at this year’s conference.

We invite proposals for sessions that focus on a range of themes and topics including the role of the academic within the legal academy; teaching-related topics including sessions that provide participants with opportunities to engage with research related to legal learning at any level and in all settings, including professional, graduate, public, undergraduate, and clinical legal education; and sessions that focus on the presenter’s research work in any “legal” field. We also welcome proposals that engage with research conducted in community in connection with clinics, research on social change connected to clinics, and research in or about clinics. 

Three possible formats are set out below. 

FORMATS: Workshops, Roundtables, Panels 

Workshops: 1-4 people present a session intended to allow participants to engage in interactive ways. The proposal should provide a clear indication of what the participants will do during and learn from the session. Workshops can be in English or French. 

Roundtables: Normally no more than 10 people provide brief reflections on a set topic which may include a set text or series of texts to ground the reflections. These may be research or teaching focused.  They might be “Author-Meets-Reader” sessions. In arranging these sessions we encourage our colleagues to ensure that some space is available for newer (pre-tenure) entrants to law teaching. Roundtables can be in English or in French. 

Panels: 3 or 4 related papers are presented sequentially. We encourage the submission of complete panel proposals from researchers working on similar themes or topics. We will, however, accept single paper proposals and attempt to find the right space for them in our program. Panels can be in English or in French.

Participants who are not proposing fully constituted panels but submitting a single proposal which would fit on a panel will be asked on the Proposal Form to indicate three different descriptors of their work:

• The methodology used in the research (multiple answers allowed) 

• The subject area of the research (multiple answers allowed) 

• The type of law school class or clinic in which this research could contribute to teaching (you may indicate more than one substantive area or course). 

SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

All Proposals, on all themes and in all formats, must be submitted at this link by January 15, 2025: https://forms.gle/mE5jfGAJanM6UXcz5

All presenters must be members of ACPD-CALT by May 1, 2025.  You can become a member here. The requirement of membership does not include people who are neither law teachers nor graduate students, for instance, community members who may be participating in your proposal. Please contact us directly in that case at [email protected] or indicate that people in this position are a part of your proposal.

ACPD-CALT 2025 Conference Committee

Graham Reynolds, Chair

Richard Devlin 

Arvind Kumar

Sonia Lawrence 

Anna Lund

Sarah-jane Nussbaum 

Sara Ross

David Wiseman

Local Organizer: 

Heather Heavin (College of Law, University of Saskatchewan)

Find this post in PDF form

Find the call in french / Appel en francais.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS  

Annual Meeting 2023 

Deadline for proposals December 23 2022.   

Submit proposals using this form

The Canadian Association of Law Teachers first in-person meeting since the Summer of 2019 will be at York University in Toronto as part of the 2023 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (May 27 to June 3 2023).   

CALT’s meetings will be  on Monday May  29 and Tuesday May 30 2022.   

The CALT Banquet and awards will be held concurrently with the Canadian Law and Society Association on the evening of Sunday May 28th, 2022, the night before our meetings begin.   

On Monday May 29 CALT will host a Luncheon for Junior Professors - all of those appointed to their first full time tenure track position in or after the month of January 2020.  

Congress 2023 is an important moment to come together and attempt to re/connect with our communities.  We are  particularly focused on the way our communities have both grown and changed since our last meeting, and of issues left on the table when we canceled our 2020 conference.  The Congress theme, Reckonings and Re-Imaginings has particular resonance in that light and will be somewhat familiar to  Canadian scholars and learners of law:   

The third decade of the twenty-first century has brought us into unprecedented times. An unrelenting global pandemic, protests for racial justice, and escalating climate disasters have heightened our awareness of the urgent need for collective action to help us create a more equitable and sustainable world. The lessons from Black Lives Matter, Idle No More, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, have been joined by new lessons, new reckonings about what is needed to live in non-hierarchical relationships that can truly honour our human differences, while protecting the land, water and air we all need to live together.  

In the theme, “Reckonings and Re-Imaginings,” we invite the Congress community to pause and reflect on the lessons we have learned, but also to begin the work of imagining and enacting the terms under which we might create a radically different world. What might it mean for us to commit to knowing and caring for each other across our differences, understanding that the world we want to live in tomorrow is dependent on the action we take together today? Can we re-imagine a new set of social relationships grounded in decoloniality, anti-racism, justice, and preservation of the earth? This invitation for both reflection and action requires a genuine investment in the project of learning and growing, a willingness to participate in active and meaningful co-engagement, and a commitment to exercising patience and care in doing the hard work of changing belief systems and the world.”   

See more at the Congress main site here. 

AN EXPANDED FOCUS 

In putting together our program, we are proposing two particular areas of attention in addressing the themes above:  

• We would like to pay particular attention to the work and needs of those members of the academy who have joined in the last 3 or 4 years (along with programming aimed at graduate students in law);
• We are looking to make more space for discussions of scholarly legal research inside or across areas of legal scholarship - beyond the scholarship of teaching and learning.    

These plans complement our familiar focus on teaching and learning law in Canada.   

PROPOSALS 

We encourage the submission of complete or partial (with space for more participants)  proposals for sessions of 1.5hrs or 1 hour. We are open to a variety of formats and themes, as set out below and we encourage you to reach out to colleagues at different institutions and career stages to generate possibilities. 

Participants should assume that remote participation—for presenters and audiences—will not be supported at this conference. All participants should plan to attend the conference in person.  If you have questions or concerns please be in touch at [email protected].   

By the time of the conference, all participants must be registered as members of CALT and registered for Congress.    We would be delighted if you chose to become a member now: please visit https://www.acpd-calt.org/join_adhesion. 

The requirement of membership does not include JD students or community members who may be participating in your proposal. Please contact us directly in that case at [email protected] or indicate that people in this position are a part of your proposal. 

Submit proposals using this form.   

https://forms.gle/MXiYF2XsPutQcRt97  

Our Deadline is December 23 2022 but we will begin reviewing proposals on November 23 2022.    

Questions should be directed to  contact@acpd-calt.org 

We also anticipate a role in arranging ‘CALT-sponsored” Open Sessions (available to all Congress attendees).  These should closely relate to the theme-related sessions and so invite suggestions for sessions or speakers and expressions of interest in co-arranging specific sessions.  Limited funding may be available to support non-academics in travel and attendance in relation to these open sessions where applicable.  Creative proposals are welcome.  

CALT may award a “Congress Graduate Student Merit Award” worth approximately $500 to one graduate student who is presenting their work at our meetings.  Only students who are presenting work which can be described through an abstract of 250 words will be able to apply for this award.  The award recipient will be notified by May 2023, and funds will be disbursed in June 2023.  If you or someone participating in your proposed session is interested in this opportunity please indicate using the box available in the submission form.  

CALT members participating at Congress may also be eligible to receive a “Child and Dependent Care Subsidy” (up to 200 per person) via the Federation of Social Sciences and the Humanities. An application is required, and decisions about this subsidy will be released on May 2 2023.  Information about this opportunity will be distributed to all who are on the program in late March 2023.  

Law and Ideas: Research, Teach, Learn, Transform

Our annual conference will take place in Ottawa from June 2-3rd 2015.

Click here to view the conference programme.

Click here for more details and information about how to register.

Click here to learn more about our keynote speaker, Professor Julian Webb, and view his paper abstract.