ELLN Chair’s Newsletter and Join us at the September ACC Employment & Labor Law Teleconference Meeting Tomorrow!

Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 2 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!

I trust that this message finds each of you happy and healthy!  Tomorrow (Wednesday, September 2) is the Association of Corporate Counsel Employment and Labor Law Network (ELLN)’s regular monthly teleconference at 3 p.m. EDT.

I have been thinking about new beginnings quite a bit over the past few weeks.  I have probably said a thousand times in the past several months that “[fill in the blank] has changed so much since COVID.”  But as both my kids started e-learning in August and I am writing this newsletter to you from my new desk at my new job in a new town, I have only started to actually feel how true that is.  I’m fortunate, though—I only deal with fear of COVID, the challenges of e-learning, and the upheaval of a job change.  I don’t fear dying needlessly at the hands of local police officers.  I don’t wonder what I will do to keep a roof over my head, a business open, and food on the table now that eviction moratoriums are lifted and what little aid I was receiving has dried up.  The current unrest and upheaval are not times to judge, but to forgive and to step up.  As we have discussed so much this year, it is a time for empathy.  Every time you see someone—at work, on the street, in a store, wherever—remember that they are trying to survive one of the hardest periods of their lives.  Probably just like you.  This will all be over at some point in the near future, but for now, when nobody is at their best, please give everyone the benefit of the doubt and a few extra breaks.  If you have time, money, and/or expertise to donate, please check with your local legal aid organization.  I will be happy to direct you to organizations that need your help if you have questions.

Annual Survey

The ELLN is still surveying members for your feedback on what we do as a Network and we invite you to serve as leaders next year!  Members who have completed the survey took 3 minutes.  Please take 3 minutes right now to answer a few survey questions by clicking the link below:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JLTMTJ8

Completing the survey is extremely important as we try to schedule programs of interest to you, our members, and to provide useful and needed resources.  In addition to the programs held during the Annual Meeting in October, we identify a current issue each month for our Legal Quick Hit and we present separate webcasts for more in-depth learning.  Also, we produce written materials to provide templates, checklists, and research for in-house employment counsel.  We recognize that the ELLN membership represents a broad range of industries, so your feedback is critical for our efforts to select programs and written materials that appeal to a large part of the membership.  We extended the time for responses to September 9. Please give us 3 minutes of your time so that we can serve you better!

September Teleconference

At tomorrow’s meeting, we will continue our coronavirus response series as Jackson Lewis’s John Remy will be discussing best practices and helpful approaches to the most common and challenging COVID-19 workplace issues as many companies continue to reopen and return employees to work.

Here is the registration button for tomorrow (ELLN leaders, check your invite for your specific link):

You can also click this URL: https://acc.inreachce.com/Details/Information/042db453-9854-4810-81a8-7a1ec1f41c6f

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.

As always, thank you for being an ELLN member, for your attendance at tomorrow’s meeting, and for your continued participation (especially now).  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