What is Law & Society's Refund Policy, Exactly?

Now that Law & Society has announced it is going to a virtual conference, many people are pulling out because they do not want to pay $250 to $390 to participate in a series of Zoom web meetings ("comments" and a "chat function" are LSA selling points). Some schools simply won't reimburse for it. 

LSA announced its refund policy here:

If you have registered for the in-person Annual Meeting and you choose to join the virtual meeting, we will honor your registration and you will not need to register again. However, if you wish to request a refund of your registration fee and not participate in the virtual meeting, we will provide a full refund and your paper will be dropped from the program, but you must fill out the refund form by April 15th. The link to the cancellation form is below -- you will have to login to your LSA profile first to fill out a form.

I am critical (here) of the decision by LSA leadership, with no consultation of its members, to charge a full conference registration fee for a virtual conference. I understand the organization relies on revenue from the annual meeting. But I don't think extending a ham fist is the way to go.

I'm further distressed to hear from three separate people that they have not been able to get full refunds from LSA despite timely completion of the refund form. Instead, registrants are receiving emails saying that they cannot receive a refund unless they are members of LSA or that over $190 of their registration fee will be retained, without further explanation.  At least one person reports sending multiple emails before getting a full refund. The other two have not been fully refunded.

To me, this is more than just bungling on LSA's part. It's fraud.

LSA should move swiftly to grant a full refund to all who have requested it.

Comments

[Chutzpah]

hear, hear! Professor Crawford.

Can we count on you to urge law schools also to refund this semester's tuition? If not, why not? What's the difference, except that LSA costs $250 and a semester of law school costs $25,000?

Look forward to the response.

[Anonymous]

The difference is that the writer would be helped by one of these refunds and hurt by the other.

[Looking forward to conference]

For what it's worth, I'm very glad LSA is holding its conference virtually, as someone scheduled to present and on the market (if there is one) in the fall. I would rather have virtual paper feedback/networking than nothing: I need this opportunity.

My school is paying the fee so I'm not too concerned about that. Why not complain to the schools not reimbursing virtual conferences, instead? That seems rather stingy on their part: I'm sure there's plenty left in the conference reimbursement budget this year with so many cancellations. If this goes on, conferences will be more vital than ever, and profs will have to suck it up and accept the Zoom substitute, as law students are being asked to do, too.