Something new has been added to the June 12 Jewish Law & Ethics Symposium, the revised format of the Conference on Talmud and Contemporary Law: lawyer jokes. 

The event has been sponsored for 20 years by Chabad of Greater St. Louis, offering lawyers, Jewish and not, a chance to earn continuing legal education credits (CLE) while exploring ethical, legal and public policy issues.

This year, the panel for the main program will discuss “When Law and Religion Collide.” The panelists include a rabbi, a judge and a lawyer.

“A lot of people have been telling us that sounds like the beginnings of a joke,” says Rabbi Levi Landa, Chabad’s director of programming. “We’re very familiar with the lawyer jokes, and we’re adding that into the program” — along with a  faster-paced format and a political satirist, Paul Mecurio, as moderator. 

The conference “was the brainchild of my father, the senior Rabbi Landa, Rabbi Yosef,” Levi Landa says. “He had the idea that a comparative analysis of Talmudic law, of Jewish law and principles, compared with modern day contemporary law issues would be a fascinating way for lawyers to get their CLE credits.”

In the past, the conference was made up of four hourlong sessions with a couple of breaks. Topics have included minors’ rights, inspired by the Elian Gonzalez case; incarceration and gun control in Jewish law; genetic engineering; a Napster-inspired session on intellectual property; marriage, family and women’s issues; the killing of bin Laden; even one titled “Jerry Seinfeld and the Duty to Rescue: A Comparison of Jewish and American Law.” 

“We got to thinking as we were coming up to the 20^th anniversary that we really wanted to offer something new and fresh, an absolutely one of a kind CLE,” Landa said. “We came up with what we’re calling a symposium, which is a fast-paced panel discussion. … And we’re fortunate to be able to have Paul Mecurio, the award winning comedy writer for ‘The Daily Show.’ He actually made the unusual transition from being an attorney to being a comedy writer.”

The symposium portion of the program, which has been opened up to non-lawyers, will consist of three main topics: dilemmas faced by lawyers when personal and professional principles clash; balancing ethical, religious and public policy interests; and perspectives on recent First Amendment court decisions. 

Panelists are retired federal District Court Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh; Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe, dean of the Institute of American and Talmudic Law; and Cathy Steele, a St. Louis lawyer and president of the  Jewish Children’s Home and the Jewish Family and Children’s Service.

One of the topics is likely to be a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing prayer before municipal meetings, “perhaps religious beliefs in the public space and where the courts stand on that. That’s just one area of the conversation,” Landa said. 

Another area may involve the Hobby Lobby controversy, in which the company, owned by conservative Christians, has balked at paying for employees’ contraception under the Affordable Care Act. 

But an earlier issue involving the retailer of arts and crafts supplies didn’t get quite as much notice but was of particular interest to the Jewish community, Landa said. 

“They had a policy of not selling any Hanukkah-related gifts or crafts during the holiday season,” he said. “They were very noticeably absent (from the stores). I don’t know what the legal issues are with that, but definitely that was something that put Hobby Lobby on the radar of the Jewish community. That was, I think, the first indication of some of their polices that people have started to question.”

The evening session at the Sheraton Clayton Plaza will begin at 5:15 p.m. with cocktails, networking and dinner, followed by the symposium at 6:30. 

The symposium will also offer two afternoon presentations starting at 3 p.m. under the umbrella title “The Ethics of Winning at All Costs”: “Courtroom Antics: The Judge, the Lawyer and the Media” and “Plea Bargains and the Cooperating Witness.”