This year’s Law and Society Association (LSA) Annual Meeting to be held in San Francisco, CA, from May 28-31 will feature presentations from over twenty ABF scholars. LSA’s Annual Meeting presents an unparalleled opportunity for sociolegal scholars to connect and exchange ideas across many disciplines and academic backgrounds.
The theme for this year’s conference, “Sanctuary,” offers reflection on academic and scholarly refuge within the current political climate. Scholars attending this year’s annual meeting will contribute to the conversation of sanctuary, as well as other themes within law and society scholarship.
Below is a list of the ABF Scholars and Affiliates who will be presenting at this year’s meeting.
Please note: This schedule is accurate and up to date as of May 15, 2026, but may be subject to change. Please refer to the Law and Society Association website for updates and more information.
Thursday, May 28
10:00AM – 11:45AM
Legal Consciousness, Socialization, Identity, & Resistance [Paper Session]
Golden Gate 07
Chair and Discussant: Alana Ackerman, Research Professor
Global Legal Education [Paper Session]
Union Square 02
Chair: Bryant Garth, Research Professor Emeritus; Discussant: Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Neukom Chair
New Directions for Studying and Delivering Civil Justice [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 14
Participant: Rebecca Sandefur, Director of the Access to Justice Research Initiative
“Judging Under Constraint: The Politics of Deference by International Courts” [Author Meets Reader (AMR) Session]
Union Square 18
Reader: James Thuo Gathii, 2022-23 Neukom Chair
12:45PM – 2:30PM
From Jury Selection to Decision-Making: Lay Participation in the Trial Context [Paper Session]
Union Square 14
Discussant: Shari Seidman Diamond, Research Professor
Worldmaking During Crisis: How AIDS Reshaped Law, Science, and Culture [Multi-Book AMR]
Continental 01
Reader: Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Neukom Chair
2:45PM – 4:30 PM
What Might Be: Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions [Author Meets Reader (AMR) Session]
Union Square 02
Reader: Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Neukom Chair
Friday, May 29
8:00AM – 9:45AM
Lay Participation Around the Globe [Paper Session]
Union Square 14
Presenter: Shari Seidman Diamond, Research Professor
Presenting “How Jurors Grapple with the Adversary System”
Navigating Fear: Lessons for our Times [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 02
Participant: Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Neukom Chair
Author-Meets-Reader Session for Unlawful Advances: How Feminists Transformed Title IX (Princeton UP 2025) [Author Meets Reader (AMR) Session]
Union Square 10
Reader: Laura Beth Nielsen, Research Professor
Carceral Political Economy [Paper Session]
Golden Gate 02
Presenter: Elizabeth G. Pfeffer, Access to Justice Research Initiative Early Career Scholar 2024-25
Presenting “Capacity Contests for Criminal Punishment: A Framework of State Strength and Federalism in the American Political Economy”
10:00AM – 11:45AM
Studying Lawyers Over Time [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 02
Chair and Participant: Robert L. Nelson, Research Professor;
Participants: Byrant Garth, Research Professor Emeritus; Ewurama Okai, Doctoral Fellow in Legal & Higher Education; Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Neukom Chair
Author-Meets-Reader: “Racial Capitalism and International Tax Law: The Story of Global Jim Crow” and “The Human Toll: Taxation and Slavery in Colonial America” [Multi-Book AMR]
Union Square 20
Reader: Ajay K. Mehrotra, Research Professor
Law and Higher Education [Paper Session]
Union Square 11
Chair and Discussant: Laura Beth Nielsen, Research Professor
12:45PM – 2:30PM
The Future of Justice Work [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 09
Chair and Participant: Matthew Burnett, Research Professor and Director of Research and Programs for the Access to Justice Research Initiative; Participant: Rebecca Sandefur, Director of the Access to Justice Research Initiative
How Do (/Should/Can) We Study the Legal Profession? [Paper Session]
Union Square 02
Chair: Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Neukom Chair; Discussant: Bryant Garth, Research Professor Emeritus; Presenter: Meghan Dawe, Research Social Scientist
Presenting “Student Debt and Racial Stratification in the Legal Profession”
Sovereign Debt as Racialized Extortion: A Comparative Roundtable [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 03
Participant: James Thuo Gathii, 2022-23 Neukom Chair
2:45PM – 4:30PM
Legal Personhood and Non-Human Entities [Paper Session]
Union Square 15
Presenter: Mark C. Suchman, Research Professor
Presenting “Public Attributions of Corporate Personhood: A Factorial Survey Experiment”
4:45PM – 6:30PM
Asylum and Protection-Seeking [Paper Session]
Golden Gate 07
Presenter: Alana Ackerman, Research Professor
Presenting “’I Don’t Know if I am a Refugee’: The Ambiguity of Refuge in Necropolitical Ecuador”
Foreign and Immigrant Lawyers in the US [Paper Session]
Golden Gate 06
Chair: Ajay K. Mehrotra, Research Professor; Discussant: Robert L. Nelson, Research Professor; Presenter: Bryant Garth, Research Professor Emeritus
Presenting “Immigrant Women in the US Legal Profession”
Policing, Surveillance & Racial Governance [Paper Session]
Union Square 03
Presenter: Joshua Aiken, Doctoral Fellow in Law & Inequality
Presenting “Guns, Racial Governance, and Criminality’s Procedures: The Warfare-Police State (1976-1996)”
Queer Legalities [Paper Session]
Union Square 02
Chair and Discussant: Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Neukom Chair
Saturday, May 30
8:00AM – 9:45AM
Territorial Disputes in the Hazy Gaze of the World Court [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 20
Chair and Participant: James Thuo Gathii, 2022-23 Neukom Chair
10:00AM – 11:45AM
Global Legal Education [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 02
Chairs: Bryant Garth, Research Professor Emeritus; Swetha Ballakrishnen, Neukom Chair
Jail Justice Initiative Presents: Current Trends in Pretrial Processing [Paper Session]
Continental 02
Presenter: Sino Esthappan, Doctoral Fellow in Law & Social Science
Presenting “How Do Public Defenders Make Their Clients Legible in Pretrial Hearings?”
Governing the Global Clinic: HIV and the Legal Transformation of Medicine [Author Meets Reader (AMR) Session]
Continental 03
Author: Carol A. Heimer, Research Professor
Overindebtedness, debt collection, and debt relief [Paper Session]
Union Square 14
Presenter: Claire Johnson Raba, Access to Justice Scholar 2023-24
Presenting “Disparate Debt: California Debt Collection Lawsuits 2021-2024”
12:45PM – 2:30PM
Tackling the Publication Landscape in Law and Society for Ethnographers [Professional Development Panel]
Plaza Room A
Participants: Traci Burch, Research Professor; Robert L. Nelson, Research Professor
Reconstructing the Regulatory State: Relationships, Resources, Knowledge and Power [Roundtable Session]
Continental 09
Participant: Carol A. Heimer, Research Professor
2:45PM – 4:30PM
Authoritarianism: Law, Politics, History [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 17
Participant: Jothie Rajah, Research Professor
Qualitative Methods and Legal Realism: Notes from the Field [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 02
Participant: Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Neukom Chair
Middle-Out Organizing in Law and Social Movements [Paper Session]
Golden Gate 01
Presenter: Willa Sachs, Visiting Scholar 2023-24
Presenting “Popular Constitutionalism Beyond the State: The Revolutionary Second Amendment and the Protest Politics of the Black Panther Party, 1966-1971″
4:45PM – 6:30 PM
What Now? Unsettling Legal Anthropology [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 02
Chair: Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Neukom Chair; Participant: Jothie Rajah, Research Professor
Histories and Futures of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), Histories and Futures of International Law [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 17
Participant: James Thuo Gathii, 2022-23 Neukom Chair
Litigation [Paper Session]
Union Square 14
Presenter: Juliet-Nil Uraz, Access to Justice Research Initiative Early Career Scholar 2024-25
Presenting “Justice Under Austerity: The Impacts of Reduced Access to Legal Assistance in England and Wales”
Analyzing Criminal Justice Reforms and Identifying What Works [Paper Session]
Golden Gate 02
Presenter: Maureen Waller, Access to Justice Scholar 2023-24
Presenting “Subverting Reform, Maintaining Inequality: Increases in Failure to Appear Suspensions in New York Traffic Courts”
Sunday, May 31
10:00AM – 11:45AM
Prefigurative Legality and the Limits of Legal Liberalism [Roundtable Session]
Union Square 02
Chair: Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Neukom Chair; Chair and Participant: Robert Gelles, Doctoral Fellow in Law & Social Science; Participants: Joshua Aiken, Doctoral Fellow in Law & Inequality; Sino Esthappan, Doctoral Fellow in Law & Social Science; Ewurama Okai, Doctoral Fellow in Legal & Higher Education
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The American Bar Foundation (ABF) is the world’s leading research institute for the empirical and interdisciplinary study of law. The ABF seeks to expand knowledge and advance justice through innovative, interdisciplinary, and rigorous empirical research on law, legal processes, and legal institutions. To further this mission the ABF will produce timely, cutting-edge research of the highest quality to inform and guide the legal profession, the academy, and society in the United States and internationally. The ABF’s primary funding is provided by the American Bar Endowment and the Fellows of The American Bar Foundation.