NALSWD Blog

As we have announced, due to the incredible generosity of our donors, NALSWD is pleased to have funding to offer some subsidies for travel costs of students who would otherwise be unable to attend our conference January 21-23 in San Francisco. While the final form and amount of these subsidies will depend on the number of students who apply and fulfill the qualifications, below is a ton of information you should know now if you are interested in funding.

The only threshold requirements to apply are that you are:

1. a current law student with a disability,
2. who will need to fly to the conference in San Francisco
3. that you attend all of the Saturday and Sunday conference events (we won’t be tracking people’s every move, but we shouldn’t get your reimbursement request and go, “who?”).

After the debrief finishes Sunday (12:30), we’ll have a table where people can formally sign up for stipend consideration and pick up the forms. We’ll then apportion our budget for stipends as fairly and generously as we can over everyone who applies/qualifies and will email shortly after the conference with the amount you’ve been approved for. Then you’ll need to fill out the forms and submit all required documentation directly to the ABA who will have a list of the approved reimbursement amounts to process and send checks to.

We can’t give anyone any money up front and getting reimbursement is contingent on both attendance and completing the ABA reimbursement process, which may mean a waiting period of some weeks after the conference before receiving payment. Our expected maximum reimbursement is $300 for airfare, some portion of which may be granted to cover lodging costs if your airfare is less than $300. However priority is on subsidizing airfare and NO funding is granted until you have completed all the requirements listed here and the Executive Board has emailed you an approved amount.

Because of all of this, we strongly recommend – for the good of everyone – that you make sure no funding is available from your school or vocational rehabilitation center for attendance (because they will probably pay sooner and will less paperwork if they have funds) and that you try to keep your airfare and lodging costs as low as possible. For people with limited funds, we strongly recommend booking a room at one of the local youth hostels ($30/night for a shared room, $72 for a private room). I’ve stayed in these myself and while they are not a hotel, they are clean, quiet, and work just fine for a couple nights of no frills accommodations. If this isn’t possible for you and a hotel breaks your budget, email nalswd@gmail.com as soon as possible, as we may be able to arrange a limited number of room-shares or couches to crash on in the city, they’re just obviously not an ideal option for anyone (as farther away/less comfortable).

One last note, the ABA requires ALL of the following documents for reimbursement:

1. A completed reimbursement form: it isn’t a long form, but if you do not have an ABA member number, there may be an additional form required to verify your identity. These forms will be available ONLY 12:30 Sunday the 23rd immediately after the conference events end, from the sign-up table.
2. Receipt for your flight – this can be an email receipt. It should show your itinerary and that you have paid for the flight in full yourself (we cannot process reimbursements if anyone other than the student applying buys the ticket).
3. Your boarding passes for your flights in both directions. The ABA is requiring proof that you actually took both flights in order to issue reimbursement. Thus I strongly recommend doing the e-check-in procedure up to 24 hours prior to your flight and printing an extra copy of your boarding pass to leave at home and submit for reimbursement just so you don’t have to try to keep track of that one piece of paper at the airport as you go through security, etc. with it.

In addition, you should do the following to get yourself on the preliminary funding list. While no funding is guaranteed until after the conference when we email you with your approved reimbursement amount, the more information we have now, the better we will be able to allocate funds to help as many people come as possible. Thus, if you are interested in funding, ASAP please:

1. Register for the Conference! http://www.nalswd.org/wordpress/register-for-2011-conference/ This is critical in order for us to arrange for enough food and appropriate disability accommodations. In the final “Other Input” section, you should also note that you will be applying for travel funding (if you have already registered, please just email nalswd@gmail.com and I will add that note to your registration).
2. Email nalswd@gmail.com with your name, class year, school, and the amount that you will be spending on airfare and lodging costs*. This is to allow us to budget money appropriately to try to meet as many students’ needs as possible.
3. Save your receipts, come to the conference, put your name on the list of applicants for funding Sunday the 23 at 12:30, fill out your forms, and follow directions carefully.

Ok, that’s a lot of info, and again, watch our blog for updates and refinements to this process. But basically we would love to have as many students as possible at the conference. While the reimbursement process takes more paperwork and time than we would like, we are making a commitment to work with people to do all we can to make it happen for them eventually and for as much money as NALSWD can reasonably manage. Just note again, that NO funding is guaranteed until you have completed all the requirements listed above and have been emailed an approved amount.

If you have further questions, please email nalswd.president@gmail.com.

Very Best,

~Anna Scholin, NALSWD President

*While we currently anticipate only being able to help with airfare costs, any information you can provide us about your costs of attendance may be helpful now (in terms of budgeting this funding) and will certainly be helpful in future years (as if we can tell donors that say an extra $1000 means 3 more students can go to the conference, that greatly improves out ability to raise funds for this in the future).

A huge thank you again to all of our wonderful donors whose generous contributions have made this funding possible!

Conference Donors: Golden Gate University, SALSDR, Microsoft, Morrison Foerster, The Morrison & Foerster Foundation, Google, Brown Goldstein Levy, Alston & Bird, Wildman Harrold, Jackson Walker, and Barnes & Thornburg