Professor Douglas Moll has been voted Professor of the Year by the University of Houston Law Center’s Order of the Barons.
=============================
Honorable Mention:
Professor Bryan A. Liang was quoted in the Houston Chronicle on potential implications of psychologists being granted the ability to prescribe prescription medications, currently under consideration in the Texas Legislature. Professor Michael A. Olivas’ op-ed article, “Being Latino Doesn't Qualify Estrada to Be Judge,” appeared in the Houston Chronicle on February 13th.
=============================
Academy & Colloquium:
Rod Borlase's Law Library & Legal Research Guides (http://www.law.uh.edu) webpage was listed by SOSIG, the premier refereed Social Sciences (including Law) Research gateway in Great Britain, maintained by the University of Bristol (http://www.sosig.ac.uk/). The listing is at: http://www.sosig.ac.uk/resource?database=SOSIG&query=997362415-20695
Rod has also been asked to present an online CLE, “Essential Legal Research Strategies & Tactics,” by the CLE Online organization (CLEonline.com) at the suggestion of the State Bar of Texas’ Legal Assistants’ Division, where Rod offered this same discussion last September at the Division’s annual conference.
Professor David R. Dow's letter “Why Augusta Golf Matters to Women,” appeared in The New York Times on November 16th. Prof. Dow was a guest on the National Public Radio program "On Point" on November 18th, discussing the policy of the Augusta National Golf Club to deny membership to women. Prof. Dow also spoke about his book, Machinery of Death, at the Jewish Community Center's Annual Book Fair on November 15th, and an excerpt from the book was reprinted in the December 6th issue of the Texas Observer.
Professor Victor B. Flatt will be working with the university administration on developing research proposals for Homeland Security in the next few months. Prof. Flatt was re-elected to the National Board of Directors for Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund.
Professor Sanford Gaines spoke at a Hastings Law School Symposium on February 21st with publication to follow in the fall. The Symposium theme was enforcing environmental norms under international law. Prof. Gaines critiqued proposals for a world/global environmental organization or an international parliament as counterweights to the World Trade Organization, arguing there is insufficient consensus on environmental protection goals and strategies to make such entities viable. Prof. Gaines argued instead for a deeper integration of environmental considerations in trade and other international economic policy, consistent with the sustainable development principle that environmental and economic policies should be integrated.
Professor Leslie Griffin was a panelist on February 13th at “Up the Ladder or Down the Chute,” a breakfast briefing on the Sarbanes Oxley Act sponsored by Baker & McKenzie. On February 27th Prof. Griffin will be a panelist on “Challenges Facing the 2003 Texas Legislature,” sponsored by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. On February 25th, the Doherty Chair Ethics Series, which Prof. Griffin planned and organized, begins with a lecture by FBI Special Agent and Whistleblower/Person of the Year Coleen Rowley.
Professor Lonny S. Hoffman's article, “A Parting Reprise,” appeared in the latest issue of the Saint Louis University Law Journal. Solicited as part of a symposium on teaching civil procedure, the article summarizes Prof. Hoffman's pedagogic philosophy and style through the medium of a end-of-semester lecture to his students. In January, Prof. Hoffman attended the State Bar of Texas, Litigation Section program in Austin, the 2003 Litigation Update and participated as an ex officio member of the Litigation Council at its quarterly meeting.
Professor Paul Janicke presided over an American Bar Association Roundtable on January 21st respecting Alternative Dispute Resolution techniques for settling patent infringement cases.
Professor Craig Joyce has been reappointed to the Board of Editors of H-LAW, the Humanities Social Sciences On-Line discussion network of the American Society for Legal History. Prof. Joyce continues to be a member of the Board of Editors of the Journal of Supreme Court History and the Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. In addition, Prof. Joyce announced the speakers for this year's IPIL conference in Santa Fe: Professors Laura Gasaway of the University of North Carolina, Alan Story of the University of Kent (UK), Eugene Volokh of UCLA, and Fred Yen of Boston College; William F. Patry, who has served in the Copyright Office, on the U.S. House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, and in private practice; and Judges Jon O. Newman (Second Circuit) and Richard Posner (Seventh Circuit).
Professor Bryan A. Liang gave the following invited presentations, “Patient Safety & Surgery: Understanding the Legal Landmines, Risk & Safety in Health Care - Meeting the Challenge,” American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery Annual Meeting, New Orleans, February 6th and “Assessing Risks of Performing Patient Safety Activities,” Health Law Speaker Series, St. Mary's School of Law, San Antonio, February 3rd. Prof. Liang also published the following articles, “FDA Black Box Warning: Time for Reevaluation as a Safety Tool,” 14(8) Journal of Clinical Anesthesia 561-563 (2003); “Hearing without Understanding: A Proposal to Modify Federal Translation Guidelines to Improve Health Care for Citizens with Limited English Proficiency,” 35(4) Journal of Health Law 467-492 (2003) (with Brandy L. Glasser); “Giant Cell Arteritis: Diagnosis and Management,” Hospital Physician, February 2003 (with Drs. J. Qureshi and W. S. Wilkie).
Foreign & International Law Librarian Chenglin Liu published a new 6 pound 13 ounce edition, a baby girl for the Liu Library, Jenny, who takes up a full 19 inches of shelf space. Author Chenglin, Publisher Lixue, and their new, rare Jenny edition are doing well.
Professor
Peter Linzer will moderate a panel at Montgomery College's Lyceum Series
in The Woodlands on February 27th. The panel will discuss the First Amendment
and the Internet. The panelists are a wide-ranging lot:
Annette Lamoreaux, Director of the East Texas Region, ACLU;
Laurie Bonnici, Director of the School of Library and Information Studies, Texas
Women's University;
Jim Jenkins, President of the Montgomery County Republican Leadership Council;
and
Kelly Shackelford, Director of the Liberty Legal Institute.
Professor Linzer
also edited the transcript of the American Association of Law Schools’
Contract Section's program last month on “Teaching Contracts Transactionally,”
and wrote an introduction to it. The material will appear next summer in the
Toledo Law Review and will be sent to all conracts professors.
Prof. Linzer has been informally advising, via e-mail, a number of high school students from around the country who are doing school projects on Virginia v. Black, the Ku Klux Klan cross-burning case currently pending in the Supreme Court. Prof. Linzer has no idea how they got his name, but he's enjoying working with them, and they show great enthusiasm and intelligence.
Professor Raymond T. Nimmer gave a keynote speech on “Information as Property” at the Association of University Technology Managers in Florida, published the third edition of his case book on Secured Financing, was named as co-chair of Program on digital rights management in Munich, Germany, and accepted invitation to teach a course on Electronic Commerce at the Graduate School of Sydney University, Australia.
Professor Michael A. Olivas recently addressed the American Association of University Women (Houston chapter) on immigration, terrorism, and higher education issues, completed a report on prepaid tuition savings plans for the Ford & Andrew Mellon Foundations. Prof. Olivas submitted an amicus brief (with Rep. Irma Rangel and others involved with the design of the Texas Top Ten Percent Plan for college admissions) to the United States Supreme Court on the Grutter v. University of Michigan case, and wrote an editorial in the Houston Chronicle on the issue of the Estrada nomination to the D.C. Circuit. Prof. Olivas was interviewed on the Grutter case by the Dallas Morning News and the San Antonio Express, by the Chronicle of Higher Education on the Ten Percentage Plan, and by the Austin Statesman on campus harassment issues. He appeared on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, discussing admissions percentage plans. Finally, as proof that no good deed goes unpunished, Prof. Olivas has been appointed to the University of Houston System Search Committee to find a replacement for Chancellor/President Art Smith.
Professor Jordan Paust was a member of the plenary panel session on "9/11 and its Aftermath" during International Law Weekend West on the American Branch of the International Law Association at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, February 7th -8th. Prof. Paust was also a panel member at a conference at Tulane University School of Law on February 20th addressing detention of persons without trial and judicial review of such forms of detention.
Professor Richard Saver was quoted in the Fulton County Daily Report (Atlanta) on December 4th 2002, commenting on the 11th Circuit's Ellis v. C.R. Bard decision, which held that a morphine pump maker was not liable for the overdose of a patient. The decision clarifies the interaction of the learned intermediary rule under common law tort doctrine and the federal device labeling laws.
Professor
Ira B. Shepard made a presentation on “Recent Developments in
Federal Income Taxation” (with Professor Martin McMahon of the University
of Florida Law School) at the American Bar Association Tax Section meeting in
San Antonio on January 25th. While in San Antonio, Prof. Shepard also attended
the meetings of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Prof. Shepard also
made presentations on “Current Developments in Federal Taxation”
to the Wednesday Tax Forum in Houston on January 14th and February 11th. (The
Wednesday Tax Forum meets on Tuesdays, and has done so for the past 25 years.
It kept its original name following its displacement from a meeting room in
the old Inns of Court when a group of judges wanted to use that room on Wednesdays.)
Prof. Shepard will make presentations on “Real Estate Tax Update” on February 21st and 28th at the University of Houston Law Foundation's seminar on “Real Estate Documents, Workouts and Closings” in Houston and Dallas.
Professor William P. Streng participated in the American Bar Association’s Section of Taxation meeting in San Antonio in January, including the Teaching Taxation Committee and the Foreign Activities of U.S. Taxpayers Committee. Prof. Streng delivered the manuscript for Supplement 2003-1 to Bittker, Emory & Streng, Federal Income Taxation of Corporations and Shareholders--Forms (Two volumes; Fourth Edition), Warren, Gorham & Lamont/RIAG. Further, Supplement 2002-3 has been published and includes revised Chapters 1 and 2. Also, Release Number 35 supplementing the six volume treatise Streng & Salacuse, International Business Planning: Law and Taxation; United States, Lexis-Nexis-Matthew Bender, is currently being published. Prof. Streng has revised and delivered to the publisher chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 for inclusion in the electronic (“Checkpoint’’) version of Streng, U.S. International Estate Planning, Warren, Gorham & Lamont/RIAG.
Professor Ronald Turner has been appointed to the Business Advisory Board of the Epilepsy Foundation of Southeast Texas.
Professor Jacqueline Weaver chaired the full-day Conference on Behind the Gas Pump: The Implications of Our Dependence on Mideast Oil, held on the University of Houston campus. The event was well attended, especially by students who could attend free. Law Professor Sanford Gaines spoke on patterns of unsustainable consumption, and Dr. Michelle Foss spoke on Latin American perspectives for supplying oil and gas. Prof. Weaver also completed editing the 2002 Year in Review of Developments in Oil and Gas Exploration & Production, to be published by the American Bar Association Section on Environment, Energy & Resources in April.
Acting Library Director Michelle Wu’s article (co-authored with Leslie Lee), “Department of Justice: A Selective Compilation of Internet Resources,” appeared at 22 (1) Legal Reference Services Quarterly 71 (2003).