At law firm seminars, retreats, and conferences, in spite of your best efforts, mistakes happen.  Problems arise.  The unforeseeable occurs.

I’ve spoken at retreats where people were up in arms following allegations of inappropriate touching by a masseur at the firm-sponsored spa massages.  Another where the hot-stone treatment badly burned one of the lawyers.  Both were at expensive, well-known resorts hosted by prominent national firms.

A couple years ago I spoke at a very fancy 4- or 5-star hotel in NYC at a program organized by an international network, where I got bitten up pretty badly by bedbugs.  (Hotel management vehemently denied that it happened at their hotel, but later comp’d my room.)

Here’s a link to an article from the January 2011 issue of Meetings and Conventions magazine on the subject of bedbugs.  Don’t think it can’t happen to you.  It can…

[TRAGIC / COMIC UPDATE]:
The same week we posted this, we learned that the hotel hosting the right-wing CPAC convention (including speakers like Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich, and Anne Coulter), has bed bugs!  Coverage from Wonkette and Politico.

Cue the liberal comedians…  

Don’t Let The Bedbugs Bite
Your role and responsibility as a meeting planner.  


The lawsuits are beginning to mount. According to news reports, in Novem­ber, a Michigan couple sued the venerable Waldorf Astoria in New York City, alleging they were badly bitten by bedbugs while staying there in May for an insurance conference. David and Christine Drabicki claim they brought the pests home with them, causing an infestation in their house. The hotel has said the rooms were checked and no bugs were found.

Clearly, that old nighttime admonition from parents has taken on significant new meaning in the past year. Thought to be eradicated in the early 1940s, a massive infestation of these creepy crawlers, which are hard to detect, has caused consternation, concern and liability not only in the hotel industry, but everywhere from clothing stores, offices and taxi cabs to home bedrooms.


Read more here.