Kieren, Thanks for your email. Many of these questions have in fact been answered in recent CWG meetings and in the proposed Rules of Engagement that were circulated earlier this month ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/12DgI7ip73eg2i0x93QKpSPwhqeO0mtAeRTm1VSWZ...). For your benefit, and the benefit of others who may not have attended recent CWG meetings, I'll answer these inline below to the best of my ability. Please note that I have not expressly discussed these answers with the rest of the Client Committee, but I'm fairly confident that they reflect the thinking of the rest of the Committee (and if they don't, I expect that we'll hear from them. On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 10:26 AM, Kieren McCarthy <kieren@kierenmccarthy.com
wrote:
Ok, so ICANN's lawyers (internal and external) no longer have special rights. On to the other unanswered questions:
* When and how was the decision made that this closed client committee would be the intermediary between the independent law firm and the internet community CWG?
This was decided at the time the Client Committee was formed, during calls and on the list. I'll have to leave it to you find the exact references, but I doubt they are hard to find. The Client Committee will not always be the "Intermediary": Sidley lawyers were on one CWG call already and two Sidley lawyers will be attending the F2F in Istanbul, with others available remotely should their areas of expertise need to be called upon. I am certain that Sidley lawyers will also be on other CWG calls post-Istanbul, especially when discussing their advice to the CWG. The calls and emails I've referred you to should also answer your "how" question.
* Is there any reason why the closed client committee cannot now be opened up to representatives from across the ICANN community, rather than the very limited four people currently on it?
It would be unwieldy, inefficient and potentially confusing to have a large number of people all interacting with and giving instruction and direction to Sidley Austin on an ongoing basis. The goal of the Client Committee is to act as a neutral intermediary to channel requests for legal advice from the CWG and various DTs to Sidley, to assist Sidley in responding to and understanding the context of these requests, and to manage the workflow and expectations relating to legal advice. As noted above, there have been and will be significant opportunities for all participants in the CWG to interact directly with Sidley Austin.
* Where is this committee intending to do its work? Is there a calendar of meetings? Will it be on conference calls? Are any face-to-face meetings planned? Have meetings already happened?
The Client Committee has been meeting with Sidley on conference calls using Adobe Connect. We have set a regular weekly call at 14:00 UTC on Thursdays. We have had 4 conference calls so far, and notes, recordings, etc. are all posted on the CWG Wiki in the Client Committee space. For your convenience: <goog_565964295> <goog_565964295> https://community.icann.org/display/gnsocwgdtstwrdshp/Client+Committee . There are no plans for any F2F meetings. Thank you for your kind suggestion to post a calendar of upcoming meetings. We will ask staff to do so. Please note that there will be no call on this coming Thursday due to the CWG F2F meeting in Istanbul.
* Will this closed client committee commit to the same transparency and accountability processes that apply to every other part of the IANA transition process? i.e. recorded conference calls, minutes etc
As noted above, in our recent CWG meetings and in the Rules of Engagement document, this commitment has already been made, and this is already happening. For clarity, I've updated the draft Rules of Engagement (link above) to reflect the evolution of the working methods between the time of the initial draft and the current state of play.
* Is ICANN's legal department still attending the closed client committee meetings with the independent law firm? If so, why? And if so how does this committee and ICANN account for the clear conflict of interest?
No, they are no longer attending any meetings with Sidley. I hope this helps answer your questions. I encourage you to join the Client Commitee email list as an observer (I was quite surprised to see that you haven't done so), to visit the client committee email list archive to catch up in the emails to date (http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cwg-client/) to attend the CWG calls to follow the client committee updates (or to listen to the recordings if you can't attend a particular call), and to visit the Client Committee wiki page and its subpages for information, documents and call records. Of course, I encourage all members of the CWG to do likewise. Best regards, Greg
Kieren
On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 9:46 PM, Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc@gmail.com> wrote:
All,
We have modified our approach to the Client Committee email list. The only members of the list are now the Client Committee (Jonathan Robinson, Lise Fuhr, Maarten Simon and myself) and the Sidley Austin team, with Grace Abuhamad providing staff support. The remaining ICANN participants who were members of the list (Samantha Eisner and Theresa Swinehart) have been moved to observer status. John Jeffrey was previously removed from the mailing list at his request after the counsel selection process concluded. Kevin Espinola of Jones Day was also previously removed.
If any participants in the CWG wish to be added to the Client Committee mailing list as observers, please let Grace Abuhamad know.
Greg Shatan
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