2010: LSA Annual Meeting will be held in Chicago, IL, USA, at the Renaissance Hotel, May 27 - 30.
2011: LSA Annual Meeting will be held in San Francisco, CA, USA, at the Westin St. Francis Hotel, June 3 - 5.
2012: jointly-sponsored international meeting, Hilton Hawaiian Village Resort, Honolulu, HI USA, June 4 - 8.
Sites of Past and Future Meetings
Information for Potential Exhibitors
At five year intervals, the Association's annual meeting is part of an international meeting jointly co-sponsored with the Research Committee on Sociology of Law (RCSL) of the International Sociological Association (ISA). The international meetings are particularly exciting events and have resulted in several cross-country, interdisciplinary research projects. The last joint meeting with the RCSL was July 25-28, 2007 in Berlin, Germany. Previous European meetings were in Budapest (2002), Glasgow (1996), and Amsterdam (1991). The next joint international meeting will be in 2012 in Honolulu, HI, USA.
In 2002, the annual meeting, the first jointly with the Canadian Law and Society Association (CLSA/ACDS), was held May 30-June 1 in Vancouver. That meeting resulted in an attendance of over 1,200 participants from 46 countries. It presented law and society scholarship in the both associations and from elsewhere in the Pacific Rim. In 2008, LSA met jointly with CLSA/ACDS, May 29 - June 1, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Attendance approached 2,000 people and 56 countries were represented.
Beginning in 2000, the Association started a cycle of annual meetings with special emphasis on law and society activities and scholarship in different parts of the world. While all of these meetings retain their first commitments to law and society scholarship without geographical emphasis, each has a distinct outreach focus. In 2000, the Miami Beach meeting drew in Latin American scholars and Eastern European scholars through the newly established Collaborative Research Networks (CRNs). In 2001, the Budapest meeting continued the participation of the CRNs with greater focus on Central/Eastern Europe and former Soviet states. The meeting attracted almost 1,500 participants from 57 countries. In 2007, LSA again returned to Europe for the largest international law and society meeting to date. Over 2,400 scholars from 70 countries were in attendance. The number of participating CRNs and International Research Consortia (IRCs created especially for this meeting), more than doubled from previous meetings the number of specialized sessions organized around the research of members. Increasingly, CRNs play an active role in organizing sessions for the annual meeting.
Annual meetings are a critical aspect of the Association's activities. At the meetings, participants exchange ideas in many ways. For example, some participants present papers in panels with discussants commenting upon them or post presentations on public boards for discussion with anyone interested; in other sessions, specialists and non-specialists participate in roundtables and freely debate ideas and authors meet readers of their books. Each meeting also includes a few general sessions, where everyone gathers to hear presentations of new ideas and recent work of leaders in the field, and several social events. LSA meetings are especially valued for their high levels of sociability.
Participants usually find that the meetings provide an unparalleled opportunity for informal discussions across disciplines and theoretical traditions as well as more traditional formal exchanges. The substantial level of international participation also facilitates cross-national research connections and expanded research perspectives. Annual Meetings are open to members and non-members of the Association. Registration is required.