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ACTEC Foundation offers funding for trusts and estates symposium

By Kim Dayton

Request for Proposals – Symposium Sponsored by ACTEC Foundation The Legal Education Committee of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel requests proposals for a $20,000 grant to host a symposium on trust and estate law during academic year 2015-2016.

The ACTEC Foundation Symposium is intended to be the premier academic symposium on trust and estate law in the United States. The goals of the symposium are to stimulate development of scholarly work in trust and estate law, to bridge the gap between the academic community and practitioners, to provide opportunities for junior academics to present papers and interact with more senior academics, to provide an opportunity for trust and estate professors to interact with each other, to involve academics from other disciplines in discussions of trust and estate topics, and to strengthen ACTEC’s image as the leading organization for trust and estate lawyers, both practitioners and academics.

The grant associated with this RFP is contingent on approval by the ACTEC Foundation. Please submit your proposal by April 15, 2014 to Susan Gary sgary@uoregon.edu or Nancy McLaughlin nancy.mclaughlin@law.utah.edu. Electronic submission is fine.

A successful proposal will provide the following information:

 

Theme:  The theme should be related to trust and estate law (defined to include any topic related to the gratuituous transfer of property (trust law, probate law, etc.), elder law, and transfer tax law).  A broad theme permits a wide range of papers, and is more likely to be successful.  Past themes have included: trust law, the law of succession, the law of philanthropy, and probate law.  The most recent symposium was titled, The Emergent Federal Role in Private Wealth Transfer.  The estate tax will be 100 years old in 2016, so a possible theme for the next symposium would be a broad look at transfer taxes, but proposals with any theme are welcome.

 

In connection with identifying a theme for the symposium, the RFP should indicate the types of topics that might be presented in connection with the theme.  Actual topics will depend on the paper proposals, but it will be helpful for the proposal to include ideas of the scope of the theme.

 

Host:  The proposal should identify a law school and one or two faculty members who agree to manage the logistics of the symposium.  Ideally a faculty member at the law school will be involved, but we have successfully held symposia at schools without the direct involvement of a faculty member at the school.  The law professor(s) or professors who are proposing the symposium will need to make all the arrangements with the school and the law review or journal.

 

Publication:  The symposium papers are published so that the exchange of ideas can be shared beyond those who are able to attend the symposium.  An important part of the proposal is a commitment, to the extent possible (the commitment may have to be contingent) from a law review at the host school to publish the papers as a symposium issue.  The law review can be either the primary journal or a secondary journal at the school.  The Legal Education Committee is aware of the difficulty of getting a journal board to commit to publishing papers in an issue that will be managed by another board and is open to whatever strategies may work.

 

Guidelines for the Symposium

 

The Legal Education Committee has developed guidelines for the symposia, and

the host faculty should plan to follow these guidelines, with discretion with respect to details.  Guidelines with pointers on various aspects of the symposia are available, but the key things the host should know before submitting a proposal are the following:

 

Papers.  After the host is selected, the faculty member will prepare a Call for Papers.  The organizer may want to secure commitments for papers from a few people first, and the call

for papers need not be for all papers, but the call for papers should be used to fill the majority of spots for presenters.  The Legal Education Committee can assist in circulating the call for papers, to help make the process as wide a call as possible.

 

The Symposium Subcommittee, consisting of two or three members of the Legal Education Committee and the symposium organizer, will choose the presenters based, in general, on the following criteria:

 

            Connection to the theme

            Interesting, innovative research

            Importance of research

            Junior scholars/senior scholars/a mix  

            Gender balance/diversity

 

In addition to the papers, the Symposium Subcommittee should select a luncheon speaker and commentators.  These people may, but need not, come from the group that submitted paper proposals.  Depending on the theme and the topics of the papers, it may be appropriate to ask one or two practitioners to be commentators or the luncheon speaker.

 

Budget.  The budget for past symposia has provided the speakers and commentators with travel (ground transportation to and from airports, air travel or mileage for driving, and hotel for one or two nights, as needed by the speaker).  Speakers have been invited to a dinner Thursday evening and on Friday breakfast and lunch are provided to all attendees.  Speakers have not been reimbursed for other expenses, such as meals en route to the symposium.  There are some additional costs for publicity and materials (ACTEC helps with production and distribution of publicity).

 

The Foundation will transfer $20,000 to the host school, and the host school will be responsible for managing the grant and paying expenses for the symposium.  The host will file a report with the Foundation after the symposium.  In the past, the grant has been sufficient to cover all expenses.  It may be helpful to seek sponsorship for the luncheon.