In case you missed it, the ABA recently got together for its Annual Meeting, this time in Honolulu. Yes, the Section of Business Law was there — and not just checking out the beach scenery at Waikiki.

This article is a mix of some of the programs you may have missed. Or possibly even some you may have attended before getting on your surf board.

So let's say you work in the legal department at a big company. What is your job really like? Are there really any guidelines to deal with your day-to-day responsibilities?

Some of the answers were offered up at "Hot topics in the tropics — the newest, latest and greatest facing corporate counsel today."

"You need to have a sense of risk management," said Glenn Ching of the Central Pacific Bank in Honolulu. Corporate law "is not just legal work," he said. But what is the legal work like? Ching again: Corporate law requires knowledge of a lot of different legal issues — "it's a mile wide and an inch deep."

Diane Yu, of New York University, offered this guideline: "If there is a 'no' in your advice, try to couple it with some alternatives."

And then, of course, there had to be one of those warnings about how you communicate, such as by e-mail. Michelle Wilson, of Amazon.com, put it this way: "Don't put something in an e-mail that you wouldn't want covered in the New York Times."

Where would we business lawyers be if it weren't for interpreting the latest bankruptcy legislation, such as the federal law that went into effect in October, 2005?

The Business Bankruptcy Committee put on the program: "The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 one year later: An update on the impact of its business-related provisions for business, financial and transactional lawyers."

A lot of things seemed still up in the air. Judge Robert Faris, a federal bankruptcy judge in Honolulu, put it this way: "You can list all kinds of places where Congress fixed nonproblems and didn't fix problems in the Reform Act."

So there's work to be done . . .

In this e-mail, Internet age, we seem to be hearing about a lot of security breaches. What's a company to do?

The program was called, "You had a security breach. What do you have to do and what happens next?"

Joel Winston, of the Federal Trade Commission: "There are 10 million identity thefts each year. Many consumers are losing confidence in electronic commerce. All too often," he said, "security doesn't become a priority until after a security breach happens."

But is it all bleak? Well, not always — maybe it's a matter of definition. "The vast majority of cases we've seen of security breaches," said Mark Melodia of Reed Smith LLP in Princeton, N.J., "involve a lost package, not a bad actor."

Does that make you feel better?

Let's say you have a client company that wants to expand its business beyond the border. OK, maybe even further than that: Beyond the sea.

Though the title of this program was "Going global with your small business clients," the content was really all about Asia.

The panel for this one had all kinds of good tips, from the general to the very specific.

Robert Brown, of Greenbaum, Doll & McDonald PLLC, in Louisville, Ky., said: "Consider a partner in a country (a joint venture) who is not a native of the country but who has business experience in that country."

Joseph Cha, of Heller Ehrman LLP, in Hong Kong, of course talked about China. "Chinese companies are looking inward for growth and other Asian companies are looking to China."

Speaking of China, Dana Tate Sandlin, co-owner of Advanced Solutions in Summerville, S.C., had a lot of very specific advice. In discussing cultural considerations in negotiating with Asians, she noted that "group harmony is very important in China, more so than any assertion of individual rights."

Draft any contracts lately? Did you draft any when you first got out of law school?

This magazine's Editorial Board hosted another in its popular continuing series of legal-writing seminars for Section programs. This time it was called: "Real writing for real lawyers: Training business lawyers to draft."

Some 50-plus lawyers crowded into the event. The thrust of the discussion could be summed up in this comment from Charles Fox, of Fox Professional Development LLC, in White Plains, N.Y.: "It's absurd that most law schools don't teach contract drafting because so many lawyers wind up doing transactional law."

Hear, hear!

Can you imagine? A Section-sponsored program that's all about lawyer jokes? Well, it happened.

Here's what the Hawaii event promised: "Lawyer jokes and bashing — a bum rap or painfully on target?" It was presented by the BLS' Committee on Professional Conduct.

One of the early points made in the well-attended program was that in many previous decades, jokes would target specific ethnic groups or countries where a lot of immigrants originated. Since such targets are now politically incorrect, the subject has now shifted to, yes, lawyers.

Charles McCallum, of Warner Norcross & Judd in Grand Rapids, Mich., put it this way: "What can lawyers do about these characterizations? We should pay more attention to the service aspects of our profession. Such as, returning phone calls. Spend a little more time teaching and explaining."

A couple of judges were on the panel, including William Chandler, of the Delware Court of Chancery. "We use large words and complicated sentences and people can't relate to that," he said. "We should learn to laugh at ourselves; we take ourselves too seriously."

No comment (heh, heh).