Page 95 - The First Fifty Years

Do Not Delete 1/8/2015 10:15 AM

CENTERED 89

Texas-Based Scholarship

As Decade 3 rolled on, however, the institutional goals of
Houston Law Review would be reexamined continually. Much of
“business as usual” would, of course, go on as before: quality law
reviews always have room for quality articles, including, for
example, articles by leading jurists. In Volume 22, Judge David
Hittner, then of the 133rd Civil District Court of Harris County
but now a prominent judge of the U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of Texas, published Summary Judgments in
Texas,61 offering a comprehensive explanation and analysis of the
procedures for summarily terminating cases under Texas law.62
In Volume 28, Judge Caroline Dineen King, of the Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals, contributed a federal-law parallel to Hittner’s
article in A Matter of Conscience, calling for an examination and
resolution of the many problems facing the federal judiciary.63

The contrast here is instructive. Both pieces were authored
by esteemed Texas judges, but there is emphasis, as the decade
progresses, not just on Texas law (meant to serve the local bar in
highest-quality fashion but also, and not unimportantly, to
educate the student editors of HLR on practical matters which
many of them were likely to face as lawyers), but on law beyond
Texas as well. How to get the balance right?

This was precisely the question that the Review’s
leadership—on both the Board of Directors and the Board in the
Basement—had to face front and center in 1987, when another
prominent Texas-based law review apparently announced a
policy decision to no longer publish articles relating solely to
Texas-based jurisprudence.64 HLR’s Articles Department, during
the fall Board of Directors meeting, summarized the Review’s
intended future articles selection policy as follows: “[We are]
moving aggressively to develop articles of significant scholarly
value . . . [while] also emphasizing development in Texas law.”65
Particularly illustrative of how that policy would be implemented
are the following instances from the period immediately following
the 1987 meeting.

In 1990, UH’s Robert Schuwerk published his massive 574-
page A Guide to the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional
Conduct—nominally Volume 27A, but practically the fifth issue
of Volume 27. An ambitious undertaking for the editors and a
considerable logistical challenge due to its sheer size,66
Schuwerk’s Guide nonetheless was a significantly valuable
contribution to Texas lawyers, which Texas Supreme Court
Justice Eugene A. Cook described as follows: “[A] fine practical