Page 170 - The First Fifty Years

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164 HOUSTON LAW REVIEW

UCLA, Robert P. Merges of UC Berkeley, R. Anthony Reese of
UC Irvine, and Joel R. Reidenberg of Fordham.30

Although contributing to the Law Review just a single article
annually, the IPIL Spring Lecture is, indisputably, one of the
Review’s crown jewels, publishing authors of a level of prestige
rivaling any journal in the country.

CONTEXT TOO

The Place and the Times

One recurring theme of these essays has been that “context
matters”31 and that the histories of HLR and its host institution
are bound together inextricably. That relationship, standing
alongside the saga of the publication’s progressively more
outstanding content as just described, provides “the rest of the
story”32 of Houston Law Review’s first half century.

The University of Houston College of Law had preceded HLR
into being by 17 years, beginning in 1947 as a start-up operation
with attitude.33 Indeed, Founding Dean A.A. White had made
clear to University President E.E. Oberholtzer, at a point in time
when UH could best have been characterized as a place aiming to
give strivers among the working people of Houston a chance of
moving up in the world, that White’s ambition would be “to make
the law school better than the University.”34

In this, the new dean succeeded in the school’s first decade;
and happily, as of this writing, the University of Houston itself
has achieved Carnegie Tier One standing, with its law school
continuing to lead the way in national rankings among its
academic peers. As noted by the University of Houston’s current
president and chancellor, Renu Khator, “The Law Center is the
engine that drives the University of Houston’s excellence.” 35

Decade 1 of Houston Law Review’s history was notable for the
publication’s (more than) humble beginnings,36 including the
difficulty even of securing adequate funding for its earliest issues,37
but also for the sheer drivenness of the men and women who
brought the journal into being.38 Decade 2 brought a consolidation
of the gains of the prior 10 years, accompanied by a recognizably
Texas-style determination to make things even better by carrying
on boldly.39 Also, during HLR’s first two decades, the College of Law
moved from the basement of the University’s main library into its
own set of multiple buildings, more than doubling the size of the
student body and enlarging the Review’s membership from barely a
baker’s dozen to more than two score.40 Lamentably, the new
buildings, while commodious, constituted an open and obvious