A while back, I agreed to be on a panel presentation by the AALS Section on Business Associations. I had not planned on attending AALS, but the person who asked is a friend to whom I would hate to say no.
My plan all along has been to fly in the night before, give my talk at the 9am session, and fly home immediately thereafter.
Even though the only AALS event I'll be attending is the talk to which I was invited, the AALS says I have to register for the convention and pay the whopping $425 registration fee.
Brian Leiter actually backed out of an AALS speaking commitment over this issue a few years ago:
On October 8, 2003, I sent the following letter to Jane La Barbera, the Associate Director of the AALS, in response to her letter "confirming" my participation on the panel noted above:
"I am writing in reply to your October 1 letter confirming my having agreed to participate in a session at the Annual Meeting for the section on Legal Scholarship. In your letter you state: “The AALS Executive Committee has asked the staff to remind each participant that by agreeing to speak at the Annual Meeting, you are also agreeing to pay the registration fee.”
"In agreeing to speak I explicitly did not agree to pay the outrageous registration fees that the AALS extracts from participants. I did agree to speak for free, but I’m not going to pay for that privilege. In my own case, I will be arriving late on the Saturday, am scheduled to speak on Sunday morning, and then will be leaving Atlanta that afternoon. I am not going to squander over $300 [Note: it's closer to $400] of my law school’s money for registration fees under these circumstances.
"The AALS Executive Committee has asked you to inform participants that they “agreed” to something they didn’t agree to no doubt because other participants in the past have resisted being exploited like this. There are many law professors who are angry both about the exorbitant fees the AALS charges and who are also in my situation, i.e., only attending the conference because they were asked to speak."Two years ago, I raised this issue with then–President Mary Kay Kane. I see, alas, that nothing has changed. I am cc’ing both the current and incoming President; perhaps they will take up the issue. Professor Tushnet wants to make the annual meeting a more scholarly event, a move I applaud; but one way to help achieve that goal is to stop ripping off the speakers. I am also cc’ing Professor Sherwin, who had kindly extended the invitation to me to speak at the Legal Scholarship session.
"In sum, I did not agree to pay, and I will not pay, the registration fee for a conference that I won’t be attending, except to participate as an invited speaker—not an attendee—at one session. If that is unacceptable to the AALS, please notify me in writing promptly, before I make any travel arrangements."
For my trouble, I was treated to an abusive reprimand by a senior officer of the AALS, who apparently thinks there is nothing wrong with charging $400 for the privilege of speaking at the AALS. This officer objected to the tone of my letter (what else is new?), and accused me of arrogance for acting as though I had nothing to gain from the AALS conference. Since I'd said nothing about my reasons for not attending more of the conference, this was pure churlishness. I pointed out to him the reason for my having to come and go so quickly was a family wedding.
Tempting as that solution is, I don't want to leave the panel's organizer in the lurch. It will, however, be a cold day in hades the next time I agree to do anything for the AALS.