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The faculty and staff of the University of Houston Law Center extend their sincere sympathy to the family and colleagues of Professor Roy M. Mersky of the University of Texas School of Law, who passed away this week. “He was more than a friend – he was a larger-than-life legend in legal academia who made the study of law into both an art and science,” said Law Center Dean Ray Nimmer. Click here to learn more about Prof. Mersky
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Where can UHLC alumni – even the newest ones – learn the ropes about entering the job market for law professors? Answer: at a two-hour workshop on Saturday, May 10, the day after Law Center commencement ceremonies. Law Center Professors Aaron Bruhl and Barbara Evans will outline entrance criteria and the timing and protocols that contribute to a successful search for a law faculty position. The session begins at 10 a.m. in Room 109 BLB. |
ABA President William H. Neukom will deliver the keynote address at Law Center commencement ceremonies at 2 p.m. on Friday, May 9, at Hofheinz Pavilion. Click here for more information, including directions to the event. |
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 When the Land Use and Environment Law Review prepares its annual “Top 10” list of the year’s best articles, environmental law authors throughout the country hold their breath to see if their work is selected from the 400 or so up for consideration. This year has Victor Flatt breathing easy, now that editors have selected his article – Gasping for Breath: The Administrative Flaws of Federal Hazardous Air Pollution Regulation and What We Can Learn from the States – as one of the year’s ten best. Flatt, who serves as the A.L. O'Quinn Chair in Environmental Law and director of the Center for Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Law at the Law Center, previously made the list in 1998 and was selected as a finalist on three other occasions. Flatt’s work, which originally appeared in 34 Ecology L. Q. 107 (2007), is related to his work under a grant from the Houston Endowment that examined the regulatory environment behind Houston’s air toxics. |
 A study to be published in the Houston Law Review has caught the attention of the New York Times – and may prompt new questions about the role that race plays in death-penalty cases. Scott Phillips, a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver, found a “robust” relationship between race and the likelihood of being sentenced to death even after the victim’s race and other factors were held constant. Reporter Adam Liptak notes that “it has never been conclusively proven that, all else being equal, blacks are more likely to be sentenced to death than whites in the three decades since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.” The study may provoke debate among academics, but not in the courts. In McCleskey v. Kemp, the Supreme Court ruled that states could overlook “any demonstrable disparity that correlates with a potentially irrelevant factor” in operating a criminal justice system that includes capital punishment. Click here to read Liptak’s full report
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 When the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary solicited experts to testify on its “Examination of the Delta-Northwest Merger,” the witness list quickly bloomed with four names: the CEOs of Northwest and Delta; the chairman of a business travelers’ group, and Professor Darren Bush of the University of Houston Law Center. The quartet took flight on Thursday, April 24, in Room 226 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building with Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) presiding. Prof. Bush, a frequent flier in the ointment of mergers, underscored the potential anticompetitive effects that can attend the consolidation of two major carriers. Click here to read the testimony he offered for the congressional record.
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For the second consecutive year, the Law-Horns (a/k/a civic-minded Law Center students) coordinated a successful Charity Paintball Tournament to benefit Special Olympics Texas. A team from Rice took first place, with two teams from the Law Center taking second and third. Law-Horns president Natalie Alfaro reports the event raised $1,300 – thanks to support from The Advocates and the Hispanic Law Students Association at the Law Center, along with sponsors Silver Eagle Distributors and Hooters. |
 There’s a simple reason why Nadia Mosqueda of the Health Law Institute serves as Team Captain for the March of Dimes/March for Babies event on Sunday, April 27 – she and her son were born “preemies,” and she’s committed to preventing premature births. Last year, 40,000 supporters made the UH campus the nation’s most successful fundraiser. This year, you can help support the Law Center’s team by clicking here.
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 The editor of the widely read EvidenceProfBlog has pointed readers toward a new article of note to be published by UC Davis Law Review: a call by the Law Center’s Sandra Guerra Thompson to require “more” than eyewitness testimony from one crime victim before a conviction can be obtained. “My article focuses on preventing wrongful convictions by legally recognizing the inherent fallibility of crime victims' powers of perception and memory,” Prof. Thompson notes. Corroborating evidence requirements are disdained by some because of their past “notorious use” in rape trials, she adds, but her historical analysis underscores their potential value in preventing miscarriages of justice based on unreliable evidence. Click here for Colin Miller’s review of the pending publication.
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Larry O’Neil Putt, a visiting professor at the Law Center since Fall 2007, has been named dean of the Alben W. Barkley School of Law in Paducah, Kentucky. In a letter to faculty and staff, Law Center Dean Ray Nimmer cited his admiration for Prof. Putt and his work, and wished him well in his new duties.
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 Click here for a Dean’s Note citing the Law Center’s continued ascent up the list of Tier 1 schools in US News & World Report national rankings. Two Law Center specialty programs – Health Law and Intellectual Property – were cited as “Top 10” performers.
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Prof. Joe Vail, who directs the Immigration Clinic at the Law Center, will be featured at a May 8 conference on “undocumented immigration” hosted by the University of North Texas. Click here for more information.
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The greater Houston area leads the nation in job growth and easily tops the 12 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, recording a year-over-year employment increase of 3.9 percent from January 2007 to January 2008, compared to a nationwide average of 0.7%. Click here to read a complete report of job-growth data.
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 The recently announced merger between Northwest and Delta has the airline industry buzzing – and consumers worried about what the future might hold. Law Center Professor Darren Bush, an expert on antitrust legislation and airline mergers, provided Fox 26 television viewers in Houston with a free boarding ticket to all the issues relating to the merger. If your seat backs and tray tables are in their upright and locked position, click here to watch Prof. Bush take flight.
Anyone curious about the role of the D.C. circuit can clarify the situation on Tuesday, April 15, when Judge Thomas Griffith will deliver a lunchtime talk in room 144 BLB. (Note: lunch will be available in the foyer before the speech begins at noon, but food and drinks are not permitted in the classroom.) The J. Reuben Clark Law Society and The Federalist Society are jointly sponsoring the talk by Judge Griffith, who was commissioned to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in June 2005.
 How would Texas and its legal system respond to a public health emergency requiring isolations and quarantines? The answers are found in a new “bench book” developed by the Health Law & Policy Institute at the Law Center with support from Region 6/5 South of the Texas Department of State Health Services. The book will be an invaluable resource for a wide audience, including every appellate, district and county court-at-law judge in Texas, elected county and district attorneys, local health authorities and the Texas Supreme Court Task Force on the courts and public health emergencies. Kudos to co-authors Anne Kimbol and Patricia Gray of the Health Law & Policy Institute, recently recognized as the nation’s No. 2 program in health law.
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