Minutes

December 15, 2014 Meeting

ABA TIPS Workers’ Compensation and Employers’ Liability Committee

Present / Absent
Vice Chairs / Stacy A. Tees
Anthony Macauley
Dale Slemons
Cathy Surbeck / Janet Coulter
Effie V. Bean Cozart
Anish Desai
Debra Doby
Charley Drummond
Michael Fish
Adrienne Gasser
Saba Hashem
Joshua Holden
Antonio Jeffrey
Deborah Kohl
Lindsey Mills
Elizabeth Paskiewicz
Matthew Schiff
Todd Seelig
Emily Spieler
Gerald Strachan
Cliff Stubbs
Jay Wolman
Mario Zavala, Jr.
Council Representative / John B. Cartafalsa, Jr.
Scope Liaison / Louise Dovre Bjorkman
Members / Zachary Rubinich

The Minutes from the November 17, 2014 meeting were approved.

ABA Mid-Year Meeting

The meeting will take place in Houston, TX on February 5-8, 2015. We will be at the Hilton of the Americas. The rooms are being filled quickly so if you plan on attending, make your reservations. The in-person Workers’ Compensation Committee meeting has not yet been scheduled. Stacy Tees, Cathy Surbeck and Antonio Jeffery plan on attending.

2015 Workers’ Compensation Conference

The Conference is now open for registration on the ABA LEL website. The details are posted on the TIPS WC Committee page and it is expected that the brochure will be circulated shortly. A Kids’ Chance fundraising event is planned.

2016 Workers’ Compensation Conference

We are working to obtain approval for everything we plan on doing for the conference. We are required to meet with the CLE board on a regular basis and the CLE Committee will need to approve all portions of the conference. It is expected that New Orleans will be the approved location for the 2016 Conference. There is a discussion as to whether to do it for two (2) three –quarter days as opposed to three (3) half days. TIPS is really pushing for us to shorten the amount of days in hopes we will not lose money. The proposed conference days are Friday and Saturday. We will most likely have a group dinner on Thursday night and a Kids’ Chance fundraiser on Friday night.

You will need to register in order to obtain a hotel room at the discounted rate.

Stacy requested that she be e-mailed on any topics of interest for the conference.

Form A

Form A was sent by Stacy to all of the Vice Chairs for input. The finalized Form A was submitted, which provides designations as far as what the Committee is planning on doing and vice chair designations for certain activities/duties. It is not our complete list of vice chairs and we can add vice chairs in if additional members would like to become involved. Stacy expressed her appreciation for everyone who is willing to step up and take on a responsibility.

Social Networking Outreach

Josh and Adrienne are working on scheduling the dinner with Insurance Regulation and Staff Counsel Committees.

Membership and Diversity

Cathy reminded everyone reach out to two people in their local area and speak with them about Committee membership. Cathy would like to expand the membership to other parts of the country and requested that people provide her with any leads/potential members. Tony noted that the ABA is offering free membership now through August, 2015 to anyone who has not been a member in the past. Stacy requested that the vice chairs forward this information of free membership onto their clients as well as other attorneys.

Stacy was able to confirm with TIPS that there is not a Workers’ Compensation Committee brochure. It is something we need to work on. Cathy and Antonio will put a brochure together before the end of the ABA year.

Stacy requested that Beth and Mario create a flyer for law students about membership which can be posted in the law schools.

Newsletter

Everybody that was assigned to write an article for the October 31 deadline did so. Stacy noted that the Fall Newsletter articles were phenomenal and again thanked everybody who wrote articles. Stacy suggested that the Newsletter be scanned and sent to clients or potential clients. Not only is it great marketing, but it should promote interest in joining our Committee.

Next due date is January 30, 2015 – Josh Holden, Antonio Jeffrey, Cliff Stubs, Andrea McCormick, Mario Zavala and Dale Slemons are slated to write articles and have been notified of the deadline.

Special Books Projects

Deb has created a list of almost 50 questions for the Compendium which we are going to divvy it up between 5-7 questions a person. Unfortunately, if you are in states where you are the only attorney on our committee, you may asked to answer all of them. If you have colleagues in your area who are not Committee members, please encourage those people to sign up.

Webinars

Jay is working very hard on the speakers for our two topics that we picked. He is anticipating that at the beginning of next year, we will be able to do a webinar and then before the end of next ABA term, we will be able to do another one. Anyone who wants to help Jay, feel free to do so.

TIPS Spring Conference

The TIPS Spring Conference for this coming year is April 29 through May 3, 2015 and is slated to be a massive CLE conference. Our committee meeting is going to be Friday, May 1, 2015 from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

New Business

Judge Torrey authored the workers’ compensation article for the Annual Survey. We will be again asking Judge Torrey to take on the responsibility for the 2015-2016 year. He has done a phenomenal job with the Survey articles.

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The meeting was adjourned.