Lawyers Manage To Turn Simplest Possible Request Into Absurd, Eye-Bleeding Powerpoint
Why must lawyers make everything complicated.
The National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest progressive bar association focused on deploying the law in service of advancing human rights and protecting ecosystems. Their upcoming Law4ThePeople Convention, taking place on October 30th to November 3rd, in Birmingham, Alabama will bring together NLG members from across the country to hear from prominent advocates and accumulate much-needed CLE credit.
But conferences aren’t cheap…
The NLG Convention is our most costly event of the year, as we not only pay for staff time to organize logistics, but also to cover the meetings costs of the hotel where the convention takes place. Paying at the level you can afford greatly helps us cover our costs, and enables us to provide the most accessible experience possible while still extending registration fee reductions to those who need them.
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Rejecting fixed fee registration is a growing trend in event planning. Conferences set prices, ideally, low enough to bring in the minimum number of people to cover costs without sacrificing quality. But this also presents a barrier to a lot of folks who would otherwise attend AND leaves a lot of money on the table from people and institutions who might otherwise cough up more than the bare minimum. Offering a sliding scale model provides relief where the fee would be a dealbreaker and potentially makes that (or more?) back from those able to pay more.
In other words, “Here’s a suggested price… pay what you’re able to whether it’s more or less, every little bit helps.” It’s how any number of museums have operated for decades and should be pretty straightforward.
But lawyers will be lawyers, so here’s a useful infographic that the NLG highlighted to explain the policy.
(click to see full size image in a new window)
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I’m not confident in how this all works, but I think Pepe Silvia gets a 10 percent discount.
As a tipster put it:
The sliding scale conference fee guide for the NLG conference is kind of awesome but also kind of overkill. The flow chart looks like a 43 factor test.
That sound you hear is Avril Lavigne apologizing to the guy she accused of going and making things so complicated.
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Maybe the point is to create a chart so migraine-inducing that everyone just pays full price so they don’t have to look at it. And to be very clear, the guidance provided in this chart isn’t wrong… if you can decipher it. As a graphic design choice, few problems are best solved by “4 axes intersected by overlapping ovals filled with multi-colored boxes of microscopic print.” Put maybe 15 of these concerns into a non-exhaustive set of bullets and move on with your day!
Attorneys. Can’t make anything simple.
Seriously though, if you have any interest in the causes championed by NLG, consider registering for their conference next month.
And if you do, they have a suggested price… pay what you’re able to whether it’s more or less, every little bit helps.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
