The AALS announced yesterday that its annual meeting scheduled for January 4-8, 2006 in New Orleans will be shifted to another city, which will be announced within a week:

Ever since the tragedy inflicted on the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina, AALS has been committed to doing all it can to help the New Orleans’ law schools, their faculty, students, staff, and the citizens of New Orleans in their efforts to recover. Part of that commitment has involved a decision not to move the Annual Meeting without having a reasonably high degree of certainty that the meeting could not be held in New Orleans. Unfortunately, despite the somewhat more encouraging recent news about the possible pace of recovery, our New Orleans hotels have indicated to us that , for a variety of reasons, they don’t expect to be able to host our meeting and that we should therefore move the meeting.

AALS has been investigating other possibilities for the 2006 Annual Meeting for more than two weeks and we are now involved in the reasonably late stages of negotiation for an alternative city. As I’m sure you can imagine, our options at this late date are limited; nevertheless, we hope to be able to announce a decision within a week. Our negotiations are designed to produce the best possible hotel rates, and costs to the AALS, in a city that can offer the usual options for restaurants and other attractions available in an Annual Meeting city.

Update:  Our sister Law Librarian Blog reports that the ABA has moved its Mid-Year meeting from New Orleans to Chicago, and has pushed it back one week to Februrary 8-13, 2006.