New ABA officers were installed on Tuesday at the end of the group’s annual meeting in Chicago. Detroit lawyer Reginald M. Turner assumed the role of ABA president, while New York dispute resolution lawyer Deborah Enix-Ross took office as president-elect. The ABA House of Delegates also met during the meeting and considered a number of policy issues. Among those adopted was a resolution calling on Congress to permit student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy without needing to prove undue hardship. Supporters of the change say it could help thousands of young lawyers grappling with a challenging job environment and $145,000 or more in student loans. Read about all proposals adopted.

Memphis lawyer and former TBA president Lucian Pera, a partner at Adams and Reese, is one of two candidates running for American Bar Association (ABA) president-elect. Pera and Mary Smith of Illinois appeared before the ABA House of Delegates Nominating Committee yesterday during the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago to make their case why they are the best candidate for the job. Both have served as ABA officers. Pera has served seven years on the ABA Board of Governors, including three as treasurer. Smith also served on the board for seven years and as secretary for three. The 69-member nominating committee will make its recommendation to the full House of Delegates for a final selection at the 2022 ABA Midyear Meeting, scheduled for next February in Seattle. Read more about their presentations to the nominating committee in this ABA press release. Pera outlines his credentials in this Linkedin post.

TBA delegates to the American Bar Association annual meeting today got personal briefings from a number of ABA leaders, including House of Delegates Chair Barbara Howard and ABA Executive Director Jack Rives at the Tennessee delegation breakfast in Chicago. The delegation, led by former TBA President John Tarpley, also hosted a reception for about 100 lawyers and officials from across the country Sunday afternoon. That event is jointly supported by the University of Tennessee College of Law, the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, the Belmont University College of Law and the Vanderbilt University Law School.

The ABA is holding its Annual Meeting Aug. 4-10 with programs being offered in person as well as virtually. Among topics to be considered are police reform, cryptocurrency, voter suppression, environmental justice and student free speech rights. On Wednesday, ABA President Patricia Lee Refo will join nine past female presidents of the association to discuss the progress of and remaining challenges to the advancement of women in the profession. The ABA House of Delegates will meet Wednesday and Thursday to consider more than three dozen proposals. Awards also will be presented to Dr. Clarence B. Jones, adviser and lawyer to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and to Lawrence Fox, a champion of legal ethics, professional responsibility and lawyer volunteerism. Read more about the meeting.

The American Bar Association will hold its annual ABA Day virtually this year with two days of programming tomorrow and Wednesday. Sessions will be focused on urging Congress to increase legal aid funding to help low-income people resolve problems resulting from the pandemic, and passing legislation to strengthen judicial security. ABA representatives will be meeting with legislators on Zoom and lawyers across the country are invited to join in these conversations. Training videos on how to be an effective advocate are available online as are briefing materials on the two focus issues. Register here.

The ABA House of Delegates approved 31 wide-ranging measures at its Monday meeting, including a resolution that urges the federal government to implement programs to assist law graduates and law students experiencing financial hardship due to their student loans.  Other topics considered include the deadline by which law schools must report employment data for recent law graduates, greater privacy for judges' personal information, increased well-being initiatives, and immigration policies and practices. In addition, delegates agreed to new limits that will govern the type of resolutions that will be allowed to come before the body in the future. Under the new rule, resolutions must advance one or more of the ABA’s four goals.  The ABA, Reuters Legal and Law.com report on these actions.

The American Bar Association House of Delegates will consider dozens of issues at its Feb. 22 Midyear Meeting. Among them are two proposals intended to ease financial burdens on law students and recent graduates. The first proposal urges the U.S. Congress to amend the federal bankruptcy code to ease restrictions on how student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy proceedings. The second resolution would call for expanded debt management opportunities, such as allowing the refinancing of private loans into federal loans. It also calls for advocacy on issues including federal loan program qualifications and the ability to suspend or forgive loan obligations. See a list of all resolutions to be considered and an agenda for the full Midyear Meeting.

The ABA Equal Justice Conference has been taking place this week with virtual programs related to access to justice, COVID-19 challenges and racial justice issues. The conference kicked off Tuesday with a keynote address by Andrea Young, executive director of Georgia ACLU and daughter of civil rights leader Andrew Young, a former Atlanta mayor and ambassador to the United Nations. Other programs addressed hot topics in civil legal aid, access to justice during COVID-19, evictions and other consumer issues, and racial and ethnic injustices. 

Earlier this week, the American Bar Association's House of Delegates voted 256-146 in favor of a resolution urging states to find alternatives to in-person bar exams amid the pandemic. The alternative arrangements suggested included supervised practice program, remote bar exams and emergency diploma privilege. The resolution was among the most controversial during the two-day House of Delegates meeting, the ABA Journal reports. Supporters argued special arrangements are necessary in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic. Opponents, including the National Conference of Bar Examiners, said the resolution could open the door for graduates of non-ABA-accredited law schools to practice without taking the bar exam, including those who previously had failed the exam.

About half of jurisdictions in the country administered in-person bar exams this week, and at least one, Colorado, reported that a participant has tested positive for COVID-19. A resolution to be considered by the ABA House of Delegates next week would urge states to abandon plans for in-person exams during the pandemic, Law.com reports. In related news, those states that have opted for online exams face another threat. Michigan’s online bar exam recently was delayed when its software provider experienced a cyberattack described as “a sophisticated attack specifically aimed at the login process.” No data was compromised in the attack, an ExamSoft representative said, but some test-takers were rattled as the delay occurred after the exam had started. The Michigan Board of Law Examiners said it plans to investigate whether the attack had an impact on test-takers and report findings to the state Supreme Court. The ABA Journal has more on the story.