As the new Chair and Chair Elect of the Aviation and Space Law Committee, we would like to let you know about some of the activities and opportunities planned for the 2010-2011 year.

First of all, we would like to express our thanks to Trevor Jeffries, the Immediate Past Chair, for his leadership during the 2009-2010 year. We hope to continue and expand upon his accomplishments and keep the committee fresh and vibrant and most of all useful to the membership.

As you may be aware our most prominent activity each year is the CLE program presented every October in Washington D.C. This year it will take place on the 21st and 22nd of October at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. By now, most of you will have received the brochure for this event, which identifies an outstanding faculty prepared to share the latest updates in the law as well as their experiences gained over many years of litigation practice. We know that this program will be of interest to you and other members of your firm. Please encourage all of your colleagues to attend this gathering of aviation legal professionals for a superior learning and networking experience.

In addition to the CLE program, we hope to increase the number of Newsletters we publish during the year. Anyone wishing to contribute is invited to contact our editors, Leane Capps Medford (lmedford@elrodtrial.com) or Paul Alp (palp@crowell.com). We encourage anyone who would like to write an article, regardless of whether they have a topic in mind, to contact Leane or Paul. They will provide guidance to all willing authors. Aside from the Newsletters, opportunities also exist to author articles for The Brief, which is one of the TIPS periodicals. Leane is also planning to publish a book on behalf of the committee which will be an updated compendium of state aviation law. We will need plenty of volunteers for this project and Leane will be available to brief everyone at the business meeting on the morning of the 21st in Washington. All are welcome to attend.

On the communications front we are planning to improve the dissemination of information in order to increase membership awareness of committee activities. We have been developing committee pages for LinkedIn and Facebook, and will advise everyone of the pages' website addresses in the very near future so that members can begin to share information utilizing these methods. We’re sure our younger and technologically experienced colleagues will immediately know what to do and the rest of us will catch on soon.

We will also be updating the committee website for those who are not members of LinkedIn or Facebook. It can be found by going to www.abanet.org and then navigating to the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section, where you will find the Aviation and Space Law Committee.

Lastly, if anyone is interested in becoming more active in the committee in any other way please contact us at khilliard@global-aero.com or barry.benson@usdoj.gov. All participants are welcome, especially enthusiastic newcomers looking to make a difference.

Kevin P. Hilliard Barry Benson
Committee Chair Chair-Elect