FEATURE
Report: 2021 First-Ever “Hybrid” Annual Meeting of the ABA House of Delegates BY WILLIAM D. JOHNSTON, ESQUIRE
I
n follow-up to the f irst-ever Virtua l A nnua l Meeting of the A merican Bar A ssociation’s House of Delegates in August 2020 and the 2021 Virtua l Midyear Meeting, the f irst-ever “ hybrid ” 2021 Virtua l A nnua l Meeting of the House of Delegates took place on August 9-10 in Chicago a nd remotely. Approximately a third of the a lmost 600 members of the House of Delegates met in-person a nd the rema inder joined via Zoom. This a rticle of fers some highlights of what, by a ll accounts, wa s a ver y successf ul meeting during which the business of the House occurred. The Delaware Delegation As I’ve noted in previous reports, the House of Delegates is the principal policy-making body of the ABA. For the most recent meeting, the Delaware Delegation included The Honorable William C. Carpenter, Jr., Delegate-atLarge and immediate past member of the ABA Board of Governors; the Honorable Vivian L. Medinilla, Delegate representing the National Association of Women Judges; Ben Strauss, DSBA Bar Delegate; Lauren DeLuca, DSBA Young Lawyer Bar Delegate; John “Jack” Hardin Young, Senior Lawyers Division Delegate; and yours truly, State Delegate. The Delaware Delegation was delighted that Judge Carpenter was re-elected as Delegate-at-Large for a second three-year term. Preparations for the Hybrid Meeting As with the Annual Meeting in 2020 and the Midyear Meeting in 2021, as 28
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soon as the decision was made to hold the first-ever hybrid meeting of the House, preparations for the meeting began in earnest with no time to spare. As before, from my perspective, the ABA volunteer leaders and superb professional staff left no stone unturned. Every effort was made to ensure that the work of the House would be accomplished within the time allocated and that there would be an opportunity for meaningful debate when appropriate. As always, ABA entities as well as bar associations were encouraged to submit resolutions for consideration by the House. The great challenge, of course, was that the Annual Meeting would occur as essentially two, parallel meetings — in-person and remote. And at at least twice the cost of an in-person meeting. As was the case with the 2021 Midyear Meeting, in light of the number of resolutions to be considered during the Annual Meeting’s one and a half-day
session, the House adopted a special rule limiting the number of speakers in connection with resolutions to three per side. Where there was no opposition to a resolution and the resolution had not been put on the consent calendar of the House, the Chair had the discretion to invoke rules of limited debate (five minutes for the movant, two minutes for other speakers). Also critically important, of course, was again determining how best to ensure timely and accurate electronic voting by delegates in connection with resolutions and other matters to come before the House. The 2020 Annual Meeting used two electronic platforms for the House meeting: a Zoom webinar for all matters other than voting, and a Sync voting platform — all of which required using two devices simultaneously. For the 2021 Midyear Meeting, and this time around, we used a single platform on our phones, which simplified life! House Chair Barb Howard did a great job convening and facilitating the meeting, including responding to the inevitable number of speakers who were still “on mute” or suddenly had become unavailable to join remotely. And the ABA Policy and Administration staff, together with the House Rules and Calendar Committee, did their usual, superlative job behind-the-scenes and on-the-spot during the meeting.
