ELLN Chair’s Newsletter and Join us at the June ACC Employment & Labor Law Teleconference Meeting Tomorrow!
Tomorrow, Wednesday, June 3 is the regular monthly teleconference of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Employment & Labor Law Network (ELLN), where I am Chair this year. This post is an open invite to in house counsel who are not already attending our ELLN monthly meetings to join us! My Chair’s newsletter appears below.
If you are an in-house counsel, and you are not an ACC member or an ELLN member (or even if you are and you haven’t joined us recently), we would love for you to attend our monthly teleconference and join our active community.
Join ACC here: https://www.acc.com/membership/become-a-member
If you haven’t joined our calls recently, or have never heard of ACC or ELLN, now is a great opportunity to check us out. Each month before our meeting, I will post our agenda here and elsewhere in social media as encouragement to join our merry bunch on the first Wednesday (generally) each month at 3:00 p.m. EST.
Joining the call is as easy as clicking the big red button below and logging in or registering.
Hello ELLN Members!
Tomorrow (Wednesday, June 3) is the Association of Corporate Counsel Employment and Labor Law Network’s regular monthly teleconference at 3 p.m. EDT. We are all members of a global legal community, and not just ACC. What we see happening across the U.S. is a powerful reminder that we as attorneys have a special obligation to work to ensure that the law is applied so that our communities are places where we respect differences and powerfully denounce and dislodge hatred, bigotry, and intolerance. The law is not immune from these issues by any stretch, and we have plenty to dislodge in our own professional spheres. For instance, this week, the New York Times resurfaced a 2017 book review on Economic Policy Institute researcher Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Rothstein’s exceptionally researched book focuses on de facto and de jure segregation in housing and urban planning that helps to explain some of the significant, institutional racial economic disparities in places like Minneapolis.
In saying all of this, I recognize that my voice has limitations. Chief among them, I am an upper class, white, 40-something, straight, cis man who grew up in rural Michigan and rural Indiana. My own privileges and unconscious biases mean that I cannot begin to understand the rage and grief you see in so many of our communities right now, but I can and do mourn for the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and so many others. Limited though it may be, as ELLN’s chair, and as an attorney, I DO have a voice and a platform. Each of you do too. I hope that in this collective time of unrest and sadness that you use your voice to speak up about intolerable injustices in our society and in the law. Support each other. Check in on your colleagues, your friends, and your neighbors. Use your skills and your position as an attorney to influence others, whether one person or one hundred. Our diversity is a cardinal virtue. Please continue to bring us your ideas for how we as leadership and membership can strengthen diversity, equity, inclusivity, and outreach in our ELLN and broader legal community. I hope you and yours are, and stay, safe and healthy.
Our legal quick hit last month and my call for coronavirus/COVID-19 questions clearly resonated, as we received dozens and dozens of excellent questions from the ELLN community related to the return to work in the new normal. This month, we will give you some answers:
Ask the Experts: Questions and Answers about Employment & Labor Considerations when Returning to Work
Jackson Lewis’ Patricia Pryor answers your questions about returning to work in the wake of COVID-19, ranging from workplace testing and screening protocols to childcare concerns, temperature checks and mask requirements.
We are working on a lengthier webinar, too, and will send more details as that comes together.
Registration is free and we will get to as many of your questions as possible. Please be sure to continue to visit our ELLN forum/message board at https://community.acc.com/. Every day we have more great information and discussion. We would love to hear from you and see you (virtually anyway)! You can also post completely anonymously anytime.
We will also hear from our subcommittees, and we can celebrate your accomplishments and work on our collective challenges. Our June Music Quick Pick appears below!
As always, thank you for being an ELLN member, for your attendance at tomorrow’s meeting, and for your continued participation (especially at this time). We appreciate having you with us and welcome your feedback on how we can make ELLN membership an even better value for you. Please reach out anytime.
Stay safe and healthy!
Doug Hass
Chair, Association of Corporate Counsel Employment and Labor Law Network
