Drafting Guidelines for Live Event Materials

ICLE Live Event materials are important references for registrants both at the event and long afterward. The materials should enhance and expand on your oral presentation. Take into account that an increasing number of attendees will be using electronic materials.

Give yourself at least a month to work on your materials, which are due 30 days before the date of the Live Event.

The due date is critically important. Materials received after the due date will not appear in the printed handbook, and ICLE will not make copies of them. Late materials will be posted online and may or may not be available for viewing during the seminar.

Materials are typically 10–25 pages. Please do not exceed 50 pages, including all exhibits.

• Do not include title pages or tables of contents. ICLE will autogenerate these.
• Use only two levels of headings if possible. Main headings should be roman numerals, and subsections should be capital letters. If you need another level of subsections, consider using paragraphs with bold, unnumbered headings. You may also use bullets, block quotes, and tables.
• Graphic images (e.g., photos, drawings, flowcharts, tables) are best presented as exhibits to written materials or in PowerPoint slides rather than within the materials text.
• Where necessary, use italics instead of underlining.
• Avoid cross-references to page numbers.
• Spell out any abbreviations at least once.

Materials are not treatises and should be as practical as possible. Simple, concise, and straightforward language is best. Avoid legalese and the passive voice.

Drafted forms, checklists, and sample documents are among the materials most appreciated by registrants, so please consider including them with your materials when appropriate. Clearly indicate a specific title for each document (e.g., “Complaint for Divorce with Minor Children”) and the order in which you intend exhibits to appear. Please do not include court forms, case reports, webpages, or other documents that are easily accessible online unless you plan to discuss them in your presentation and the audience should have the document to follow along. As an alternative, provide Web addresses or a bibliography of useful materials. Please be sure to include a title for each individual exhibit.

There is no requirement that you include a PowerPoint show as part of your presentation, but consider that PowerPoint slides can be very helpful for lists, graphs, charts, highlights, or callouts of parts of a document or labeling on a photograph. These slides will emphasize and clarify points you are making during your presentation.

ICLE cannot reprint copyrighted material unless you obtain written reprint permission from the copyright holder. If you wish to include such material, please send it to us and provide the title of the publication from which it is taken, the author’s name, the date published, and an express authorization/release for reprint permission. Note that even your own material may need copyright permission if you assigned copyright to a publisher. NOTE: Material received for publication without written reprint permission will not be reproduced in the seminar materials handbook.

You hold the copyright to your own seminar materials. ICLE holds the copyright to the collected work in which your seminar materials appears. By submitting your article or agreeing to speak, you are granting ICLE a nonexclusive license to (1) publish and sell your seminar materials as part of a collected work or individually, on paper, on CD, or in electronic form; (2) use all or portions of your seminar materials in derivative works; and (3) record, duplicate, and offer for sale your lecture or a portion thereof on audio CD, MP3, DVD, via live webcast or archived video, or in other formats.