Page 87 - The First Fifty Years

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CENTERED 81

In short, the institution had not only recognized what it had
become but also proposed to do more of the same, only better.

As a bonus, the 1982 announcement also disclosed to a waiting
world the new Law Center’s new seal:

The new seal of the University of Houston Law Center is
composed of three martlets above an opened text
emblazoned with the Latin word for law, LEX. The martlet,
a gentle Lowlands bird, symbolizes peace and deliverance.
Martlets appear in the University of Houston seal which
has as its genesis the coat of arms of General Sam Houston
who claimed descent from an eleventh century Norman
knight, Sir Hugh of Padavan. Having acquired both a new
name and seal, . . . the Law Center has now completed the
preliminary steps toward proving itself one of the nation’s
foremost legal institutions.

Gentle Lowlands birds. Peace and deliverance. Knights. Sam
Houston. Who knew?

The LL.M. Program
A not incidental part of the Law Center’s transformation
during the 1980s (although it paled in comparison with the
impacts of the specialty programs on Houston Law Review) was
an expansion of the curriculum to include a Master of Laws
(LL.M.) program. The dates of creation of the various LL.M.
concentrations, together with the concentrations’ current titles,
are: Energy, Environment & Natural Resources Law (1983);
International Law (1983); Tax Law (1983); Health Law (1991);
and Intellectual Property & Information Law (1994).14 While
candidates for degrees in the foregoing Master of Laws
concentrations are ineligible for HLR membership, the LL.M.
Program nonetheless supports Review operations indirectly by
expanding the Law Center curriculum in these specialized areas.
Enhanced curricular offerings in the subject fields in turn attract
to the Law Center professors and students focused on these areas
of study, thereby feeding to Houston Law Review both
scholarship by UHLC faculty members and their academic peers
from around the world and student members with specialized
aptitudes in IP, health law, etc.

Institutes, Centers, and Programs
The centerpiece of the changes wrought in the Law Center’s
mission and mindset during Decade 3 was a continual expansion
and enhancement of its specialty program offerings, always