CLCC Hot Topics

The Committee continues our new tradition of melding together a couple of then-current hot (or hotter...) topics for presentation to the crowds.

Brad Joslove spoke at the Committee Forum, detailing some of the recent case law in France as it relates to e-contracting, particularly in the consumer arena.


E. Michael Power and Roland Trope spoke about their upcoming new book on data security issues, with a focus on director and officer liability, Sailing in Dangerous Waters: A Director's Guide to Data Governance. The book grew out of a project that originated and was supported by the Cyberspace Law Committee's Privacy and Security Subcommittee, chaired by Marc Pearl and Ray Gustini. There are plenty of good reasons as to why our clients continue to be subject to danger while they stick their heads in the sand.

Working Group on Spam and Unsolicited Electronic Marketing

Elizabeth Bowles, chair of the Working Group on Spam and Unsolicited Electronic Marketing, leading the morning meeting of the WG on Friday morning.


The group briefly discussed the coming program for Saturday morning (8 AM!!) concerning technology controls. The bulk of the hour was spent discussing future projects -- an initial consensus was to develop materials concerning Spyware and Phishing for a future program. There is pending federal legislation concerning Spyware in both houses, Senate Bill 687 and House of Rep Bill Bill 29. The thought is that this legislation, and general interest on the topic, as well as a smattering of pre-existing law that might apply, so the WG believes there will be plenty of material to work with.

Publication Opportunities

The cyberspace committee has a long history as a prolific source of material for the book publishing arm of the ABA. Suzy Bibko (ABA staff; head of the Section's publications group), told the committee this morning that the ABA already has published two works by committee members this calendar year; at least four other books are in the "approved for publication" pipeline, and a few more are under concept development.

If you, or your subcommittee, are working on a project or presentation that could yield a book, please see Vince or Candace Jones.

Blogging The CLCC Plenary Session

Vince, Candace and John (of Jones, Polley and Lunseth, LLP) opened the Spring Meeting plenary session for the Cyberspace Committee. We learned of the programs that are occurring here in Nashville, discussed the dinner coming up on Saturday night, and plugged the continuing need for publication materials.

Candace, Vince and John 


The Annual Meeting in Chicago, this coming August, will feature at least 3 main programs from CLCC and one hour-long forum. We have one of the main programs set already -- a very timely discussion of outsourcing concerns that will feature a star panel of lawyers including an attorney from India who will speak to the issues from his own perspective. There are other slots that are officially 'open' still -- but time is coming short on making final decisions, so those who are interested in getting a slot should get proposals to John Lunseth post haste.

Vince announced a couple of leadership issues. Mike McGuire has relinquished his role as the publication head, and the committee is soliciting volunteers for taking over the position (finishing the current term and presumably as well as picking up with the new 3 year cycle this coming August.) The committee thanks Mike for his hard work, so long as he continues to promise his efforts towards this blog going forward.

Finally, speaking of the new 3 year cycle coming up, Vince's term as The Boss is coming to a close as of August. The incoming chair of the Business Section appoints the Committee chair, and Vince was pleased to announce the appointment of Candace to take over the chair as of August. Applause. All of us should be sure to congratulate Candace on her new appointment -- and volunteer your respective behinds into assisting her with this huge task!

And with that -- We cut the Plenary short to allow enough time for the Committee Forum that followed.

A View of Nashville

The Ryman Auditorium -- Original home of the Grand Ole Opry -- and just across the street from our meeting space. Nashville has wonderful weather for those of us from the northern climes -- and you can see plenty of greenspace all over the downtown areas! 

An Early Start for Some of Us

Thursday is the official opening of the Business Law Section's meeting, but the bulk of the CLCC meetings are taking place on Friday and Saturday. However, many of us are already here, and some presentations are already underway.

A group of five -- Jackie Scheib, Candace Jones, Bruce Doeg, Juliet Moringello, and yours truly, joined together to speak to the Young Lawyers Division's day-long seminar. Believe it or not, the group managed to compress the entire body of Internet and Cyberspace Law into 90 minutes. Hopefully, we've planted the seeds for the next group of cybernauts to join us down the road.

While not actually a Cyberspace function, our own Christina Kunz worked her UCC Committee beat with a well-attended and well-received panel discussion on the theory of indemnity clauses, good drafting tactics, and other practice tips. The panel suggested that it was the tech arena where the indemnity clause stepped outside of its traditional usage -- mainly in the construction business. Having done tech contracting for so long, we may not realize that many of us are well ahead of the rest of the non-tech practitioners when it comes to the indemnity section in our contracts. (Even so -- We all could learn. I took away some information on the necessity for nexus in a private indemnity clause -- the idea that an enforceable indemnity clause needs to have a provable nexus between the covered claims and the contract itself. One of those little things that you might do already -- using words like "that arise out of" for example -- but we might not know exactly why that is important. Consequences of failing to do that? For one thing, you might get nailed for engaging in the practice of issuing insurance policies without a license...) Materials are available here (ABA membership required).

The evening was highlighted with a Welcome Reception at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Like last year's opening night at the Seattle Rock & Roll museum, the museum was open for the gathered to wander as they wished, and the main hall was open for meeting with old friends and listening to live music. (Guess what kind of music?)

Things get going in earnest tomorrow -- If you aren't here, we'll try to continue the tradition of live-blogging from some of the meetings, particularly the main committee meeting between 9 and 10 Central Time.

From the home of the Grand Ole Opry, Goodnight.

Cyberspace Law Committee Schedule

I marked up the Master chronological schedule for the Spring Meeting and highlighted in yellow all the Cyberspace Law Committee meetings. I also annotated the schedule to identify cancellations of meetings.

You can review the annotated schedule here.

Spring Meeting Schedule for Business Law Section

The ABA Website has the following scheduling information for the meeting:

2005 Spring Meeting Online Program Book

CLE-at-a-Glance

Alphabetical Schedule of Committees and Subcommittees

Master Chronological Schedule of Events

Program Schedule of Events

Schedule Changes

Working Group on International Policy (Saturday at 11:00 a.m.)
This Working Group has arranged to meet jointly with the International Coordinating Committee (ICC) from 11:00-11:30. The joint session will take place in the room scheduled for the ICC, Convention Center, 2d Floor, Room 202. After the joint session, the Working Group will probably remain in Room 202 to finish its meeting. Signs will be posted at the scheduled meeting room, Convention Center, 2d Floor, Room 211.

Electronic Commerce Subcommittee (Friday at 1:30):
A new project has been proposed -- formulating a Model Electronic Data Agreement (governing data held by third-party service providers). The project proposal is attached as a Word file. Members of the Electronic Commerce Subcommittee will have more information about this project.

Working Group on Electronic Payment Systems (Thursday at 1:30):
This Subcommittee will not meet.

Connectivity, Storage and Computing Infrastructure (Saturday at 2:00 p.m.):
This Subcommitee will not meet.

Spring Meeting Is Here

The Business Law Section of the ABA will have it's annual Spring Meeting this week in Nashville, Tennessee. I'll be absent for this meeting, but Michael Fleming and the other members of the crew will keep the blog alive in my absence. I'll finally get a chance to see what it's like to follow the meeting from afar via the Blog.

If you're interested in posting during the meeting, post a comment to this entry, and we'll take care of it.

-Michael McGuire