AALS Section on Disability Law Call for Papers/Presentations for 2016 Annual Meeting

The AALS Section on Disability Law issued the following call for papers and presentations for the 2016 AALS Annual Meeting to be held in New York, New York, January 6-9, 2016. Selected papers will be published in the Journal of Legal Medicine.



Program title

The Wounded Warrior Comes Home: Exploring the Impact of Disabled Veterans on Disability, Health, and Other Law and Policy.



Program Description

About a century ago, returning war veterans with disabilities had a profound impact on both cultural and legal attitudes toward disability, shifting us from the charitable model to the rehabilitation model. Today’s soldiers often survive injuries that would have been fatal in prior combat engagements, leaving them with even more significant physical impairments. There is also a growing understanding of the scope of mental impairments associated with military service. 



At the same time, disability has shifted from something personal to the individual that she or he must work to overcome, to something largely attributable to choices made by society, and we now recognize equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities is a matter of civil rights. Veterans with disabilities may once again play a significant role in shaping the future of disability rights law. In addition, in an era of changing norms regarding health care, veterans with disabilities may play a significant role in that context. Beyond those topics, veterans with disabilities may affect issues of criminal law, employee benefits law, and tax law, to name a few. 



This panel will explore the contemporary impact of veterans with disabilities on our law, including ways in which law and policy can be more responsive to the needs of these veterans and those with whom they interact, and how their unique status may help inform various normative conversations.



Paper/Presentation Requirements and Submission Instructions

Presentations and papers may address a wide spectrum of issues associated with the program topic, from macro or micro perspectives, and further may focus on historical foundations, present conditions, assessment of past or current corrective measures, and/or the analysis of necessary corrections or changes in law or public policy.

Selected papers will be published in the Journal of Legal Medicine, the legal journal of the American College of Legal Medicine. Papers must not have been published or accepted for publication elsewhere. Preference will be given to papers of 25,000 words or fewer.



Abstracts of proposed papers/presentations should be submitted to Cheryl L. Anderson, AALS Disability Law Section Chair, at cheryla@siu.edu no later than Monday, August 3, 2015. The officers of the Section on Disability Law will select two abstracts for presentations. Authors will be notified no later than August 24, 2015.