Property law conference to run for 24 hours -- straight

Let’s say you are an organization whose members span the globe – and we mean every corner of the globe – and an in-person conference isn’t in the cards because of a pandemic. What do you do?

You hold one virtually and around the clock, of course!

That is exactly what the Association of Law, Property & Society (ALPS)  – of which Tulane Law Prof. Sally Richardson is Vice President – has done. Starting Friday at 7 a.m. and running through Saturday, May 29 at 7 a.m., ALPS will host 24 hours of panels, in all time zones and featuring speakers from all over the world. Had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic, the event would have taken place this year at Tulane Law.

The event will highlight property law scholarship via discussion panels starting on British Summer Time, China Standard Time, GMT, Central Time and, well, every other time. Of course, it can be done using two “Zoom Rooms” and a lot of organizing and planning.

Among the highlights is a keynote by Lee Fennell of the University of Chicago Law School who will address “Configuring Property’s Future” and an opening plenary panel discussing “The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us” by author Nick Hayes.

The idea was to bring as many people together over 24 hours, said Richardson, a Civil Law and Property Law expert, and Tulane Law’s Vice Dean for Academic Affairs. Richardson is moderating five panels, some at some odd hours, including two that are titled, “Equity and the Constitution” and “Racism, Reform and Parks.”

Among the panelists are scholars from American universities like Harvard, Tulane and Southern,  to those much farther away in Iceland,  Maastricht, Calgary, Sydney, London and Glasgow, among others. Panels focus on everything from “Agroecology, Habitability and the Commons” and “Blockchains, Robots and Genomes” to “Property, Torts and the Pandemic” and “Resilience, Marriage and Decision-Making.”

A full agenda is here.