[CWG-Stewardship] Client Committee Mailing List

Fri Mar 20 17:59:16 UTC 2015

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/12DgI7ip73eg2i0x93QKpSPwhqeO0mtAeRTm1VSWZftA/edit?usp=sharing).
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 at 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

>
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> Kieren
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> On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 9:46 PM, Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc at 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> CWG-Stewardship mailing list
>> CWG-Stewardship at icann.org
>> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cwg-stewardship
>>
>>
>
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