Page 175 - The First Fifty Years

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ENDURINGLY GREAT 169

From 1987 to date, Houston Law Review has been advised not by
a single advisor, but by a team. Joining Buchanan on the

masthead on his return from deaning were Laura Oren, the first
UHLC graduate and HOUS. L. REV. alumna to serve as an

advisor, and Mark Rothstein, whose Health Law & Policy
Institute had become central to both the school and the journal
when the former College of Law changed its name to reflect

greater specialization in the practice of law and the rise of
centers, institutes, and programs in the new Law Center.70

Beyond those already named, eight other faculty members,
typically among the Law Center’s most distinguished and prolific
scholars, have served as advisors over the last 20 years. A

complete record of HLR’s faculty advisors, including their dates
of service and a listing of their scholarly contributions to the

Review, appears in the attached endnote.71 The longest serving
current advisor, Robert A. Ragazzo, has begun sneaking up on
the record for extended service presently held by Captain Nice.

In the oral history which is the foundation of the present
segment, Advisors Oren, Dow, and Ragazzo were (more or less)

forthcoming on a number of topics.
Regarding the surge of new advisors in 1993 (when the count

reached HLR’s now-standard four), the advisors think they know
the reason why. Until that time, the publication of books had
been a major part of the Review’s identity, but also a major

management headache.72 By the early 1990s, one issue appeared
containing no professional articles whatsoever; and the book

projects had produced sporadic timing issues within the volumes
of the period.73 All three advisors added in 1993 had served on
top-drawer law reviews (none of which published books) during

their student days, Ragazzo and Seth Chandler at Harvard and
Dow at Yale. Dow’s experiences at Yale Law Journal had

prepared him for the challenges now facing Houston Law Review.
All of Yale’s Volume 93, he recalls, “came out before Volume 92.

That’s just how far behind Volume 92 was.” HLR’s editors
“maybe . . . just figured that I had some experience with massive

delays . . . [and] with how much ill will that can create with
authors.”74 Within a year, timeliness issues would become
ancient history at the Review.75

The new discipline paid off during the Great Storm of
2001.76 Amazingly, Ragazzo remembers, after Allison flooded

their offices the student editors “had literally nothing . . . but
they raised about $40,000” to keep HLR up and running and

put out every issue that year on time. “I’m pretty sure the
public couldn’t tell that we had a major disaster. . . . That