May 2003

John Jay Douglass will be unable to attend the UH Law Center graduation as he will be in Lincoln to receive the 2003 Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Nebraska from which he graduated in 1943.

Sandy Gaines participated in an organizational meeting of a proposed worldwide Academy of Environmental Law in April. The meeting was hosted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and included over thirty law professors from more than twenty countries as well as representatives of two UN agencies. The Academy is due to be launched in November 2003 at a conference in Shanghai.

Professor Gaines will participate in a meeting of the North American Consortium on Legal Education on May 9-11 at George Washington University. While there, he will speak on NAFTA and the environment at a symposium session. Finally, for those who may not have heard, Professor Gaines will be a visiting professor at the University of Arizona for the fall semester, teaching international trade and public international law.

Leslie Griffin presented, on March 14, a paper entitled “A Client’s Theory of Professionalism” on a panel at Emory University’s Conference on Ethics and Professionalism. On March 19, she was quoted on the ethics of ex parte contacts in an Albany Times-Union article, Paper trail connects judge, church lawyer. On April 7^th and 9^th the Law Center welcomed the last two whistleblowers, lawyer Abraham Sofaer and priest Thomas Doyle, for the Doherty Chair Ethics Series.

Sandra Guerra Thompson presented a paper at a symposium at William and Mary School of Law in March. The article, entitled The White-Collar Police Force: Duty-To-Report Statutes in Criminal Law Theory will appear in the next issue of the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal. She was interviewed by the Beaumont Enterprise for a story about a sheriff charged with fraudulent activities. Channel 13 News also interviewed Professor Guerra Thompson for a story about a charitable organization that is being sued for fraud. Finally, she received the University of Houston Teaching Excellence Award for 2003.

Craig Joyce edited The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice (Random House), by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the Supreme Court of the United States. The book focuses on a range of topics of concern to the Justice (who visited the Law Center in 1993), including improvement of the justice system and the profession, women’s struggle in society and the law, and the rule of law, both historically and in the new world of the 21^st Century.

Also, as Chair of the Facilities Committee, Professor Joyce announced that reconstruction of the O’Quinn Law Library, the final portion of the Law Center’s build-back from Tropical Storm Allison, will be completed by June 9, 2003, the second anniversary of the disaster. Many thanks to the dedicated staff of the library for keeping operations on-going during this very difficult period!

Professor Joyce will chair the search for a new permanent director of the Law Library.

Joan Krause served as the Moderator for a Legal Roundtable on “Integrating Gender into the Curriculum: The Law School Example,” sponsored by the UH Women’s Studies Program.

Bryan Liang wrote four articles this year: Comment: Patient Complaints and Malpractice Risk, 47 Survey of Anesthesiology 122 (2003). Comment: Bioterrorism, Public Health, and Civil Liberties, 47 Survey of Anesthesiology 77 (2003). Comment: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide Among Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in the Netherlands, 47 Survey of Anesthesiology 77 (2003) and with Connor J. Loftus and Joseph A. Murray, Celiac Disease: Diagnosis and Management, Hospital Physician (April 2003). He made two presentations at the South Carolina Academy of Audiology 2003 Annual Meeting, Charleston on the Beach, Folly Beach, SC. The first is entitled Ethics in Practice: The Law of Conflict of Interest, Privacy, and Fraud and Abuse and Implications; the second is called The Implications of HIPAA: Provider Issuers in Preserving Privacy. Professor Liang was also interviewed by the San Antonio News-Express and Corpus Christi Caller-Time on Texas House Bill 4 and medical malpractice reforms; he was also interviewed by the Houston Chronicle on the impact and prestige/status of NASA scientific publications. Finally he reviewed 159 grant proposals as a member, Research Program Committee, National Patient Safety Foundation, Chicago, IL, May 7, 2003.

Douglas Moll’s article, Shareholder Oppression & Dividend Policy in the Close Corporation has been accepted for publication by the Washington & Lee Law Review. Professor Moll was also chosen as a class “hooder” by the graduating class of 2003.

Gerry Moohr’s article, The Crime of Copyright Infringement: An Inquiry Based on Morality, Harm, and Criminal Theory will be published next fall by the Boston University Law Review. (Many thanks to the Friday Frontier workshop participants.) The Florida Law Review is publishing An Enron Lesson: The Modest Role of Criminal Law in Preventing Corporate Crime. This article will be reprinted in a book of readings on Enron, edited by Nancy Rapoport and Bala Dharan. On April 23, 2003, Professor Moohr moderated a panel discussion, “Criminalization of Corporate Conduct-Do Guccis Go with an Orange Jumpsuit?” at the quarterly meeting of the Houston chapter of the Texas General Counsel Forum. The panelists were Joel Androphy of Berg & Androphy and Quincy L. Ollison, Deputy Criminal Chief on White Collar Enforcement, U. S. Attorney’s Office, Houston.

The April issue of the National Jurist featured students (quotes and pictures) from Professor Moohr’s white collar crime class and included interviews with her and Professor Doug Moll.

Professor Moohr will be visiting at Washington & Lee University School of Law next fall.

Michael Olivas was awarded the inaugural Arthur K. Smith Leadership Award, to be given every year to the UH faculty member who has “exemplified extraordinary service and leadership to the UH Community.” He spoke on the obligations of mentoring at a higher education state association convention in Illinois, and was interviewed for stories on higher education legal issues and immigration topics in the Austin Statesman, the San Antonio Express, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Change Magazine.

Jordan Paust’s article Use of Armed Force Against Terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Beyond has been published in 35 Cornell International Law Journal 533 (2003). Professor Paust was a panelist at the symposium on “The Judiciary and the War on Terror,” at Tulane University School of Law on February 21^st; a judge in the final round of the Southeast Regional portion of the Jessup International Moot Court Competition held at Florida State University March 2^nd; spoke at the UH Law Center meeting in Houston on March 19^th on “Is a War with Iraq Justifiable under International Law?” and was a presenter and panelist during the Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association meeting at Loyola Law School, New Orleans on March 21^st addressing “The War at Home: Civil Rights & Civil Liberties in the U.S. Post 9/11.” He was also a member of a panel on “Legal Responses to Terrorism: Security, Protection and Rights,” during the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law, April 2-5. He has an on-line essay The US as Occupying Power Over Portions of Iraq and Relevant Responsibilities Under the Laws of War, available at http://www.nimj.com/documents/occupation.doc with a shorter version as an ASIL Insight at http://www.asil.org/insights/insigh102.htm

Professor Paust’s essay, Judicial Power to Determine the Status and Rights of Persons Detained Without Trial is set for publication in 44 Harvard International Law Journal (2003) and will be on-line at the Harvard Journal for use by litigants prior to actual publication. His essay War and Enemy Status after 9/11: Attacks on the Laws of War, will also be published soon in 28 Yale Journal of International Law (2003).

With the advent of the war with Iraq, he has also appeared on local television, CNN International, and NPR, and was quoted in various printed media concerning the laws of war, human rights, and possible prosecutions of international crimes. Professor Paust has also been selected as an Editor of a new on-line International Law Journal whose other editors are professors from Northwestern, Princeton, Virginia, and NYU. He also received the UH Law Alumni Association Faculty Distinction Award for 2003.

Nancy Rapoport’s Fordham Law Review piece, Enron, Titanic, and the Perfect Storm, just came out as part of a legal ethics symposium; She also spoke at the NALP annual meeting in Orlando (on the ABA Commission on LRAPs-of which she is a member and which will sunset in August); She spoke on Enron at the Barry Zaretsky Symposium at Brooklyn Law School on April 29, 2003 and spoke on a program with Sherron Watkins for the River Oaks Business Women’s Executive Committee (ROBWEC) on May 2, 2003. Dean Rapoport will continue her speaking engagements at a UT CLE program on remote & special purpose entities with Bala Dharan, her co-editor on the Enron book, in San Antonio later this month; and she is a faculty member for the ABA New Deans’ School aka the Velvet Boot Camp in Jackson Hole, Wyoming after she attends the LSAC Annual Meeting at the end of May.

Richard Saver, representing the UH Health Law and Policy Institute, attended the Canadian Institutes of Health Research 2003 Annual Colloquium May 1-3 in Halifax, Canada. The event, coordinated by Dalhousie University, brought together scholars and graduate students from different disciplines for presentations of research in health law and policy. Professor Saver’s article, Squandering the Gain: Gainsharing and the Continuing Dilemma of Physician Financial Incentives, was accepted for publication in the Fall 2003 issue of the Northwestern University Law Review.

Robert Schuwerk gave a presentation on federal class actions at a Colloquium on Representative Actions Under the Laws of Brazil, Columbia, Spain and the United States, held in Mexico City on March 9-12, 2003. The Colloquium was sponsored by the Instituto de Investigaciones of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (U.N.A.M.) He also gave a presentation on ethical issues in real estate practice to the 19^th Annual Real Estate Law Conference held at the South Texas College of Law on May 1-2, 2003.

Ira Shepard spoke on “Recent Developments in Federal Income Taxation” at the Tax Executives Institute’s Tax School on March 19^th in Houston. The following day, he attended a meeting of the University of Texas Tax Conference Planning Committee in Austin. He spoke for four hours on “Recent Developments in Federal Income Taxation” to the IRS CPA Society in Houston on March 27^th. He spoke to the Wednesday Tax Forum on “Current Developments in Taxation” on March 11^th and April 9^th. He attended the U.S. Tax Court Judicial Conference in Farmington,  Pennsylvania from April 23^rd to 25^th. On April 29^th he made two presentations at the American Petroleum Institute Tax Forum in Houston: The first was to participate (with Terry Coles of Shell Oil Company and Gray Jennings of Baker Botts) on a panel on “Recent Cases On Confidentiality As They Affect In-House Corporate Tax Professionals.” The second presentation was on “Recent Developments in Federal Income Tax.”

Ronald Turner’s article Were Separate-But-Equal and Antimiscegenation Laws Constitutional?: Applying Scalian Traditionalism to Brown and Loving has been published at 40 San Diego Law Review 285 (2003). His article The Americans with Disabilities Act and the Workplace: A Study of Interpretive Methodologies and the Supreme Court’s Disabling Choices and Decisions will be published in Fall 2003 by the New York University Annual Survey of American Law.

Joseph Vail gave a presentation on March 29, 2003 to the Houston Pro Bono Asylum Program on refugee and asylum law at the Law Center and on April 4^th he presented two papers and spoke on detention and custody proceedings for immigrants. On May 9^th at the State Bar CLE on Immigration Law he will deliver a paper on deportation and removal proceedings and preside over a mock removal (deportation) hearing. He will speak on the USA Patriot Act and immigration law relating to national security issues on May 28, 2003 to the Association of Women Attorneys, Houston, TX. and on June 19, 2003 he will give a talk on constitutional issues relating to the arrest, detention and custody of immigrants to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) National Conference in New Orleans, La.

Jacqueline Weaver was honored by the Energy Litigation Section of the ABA’s Section on Litigation for her contributions to oil and gas and energy law at a reception on April 12, 2003 during the annual meeting of the section. Professor Weaver also spoke to the Energy Litigation Section on “The Top Ten List of Energy Issues in the Next Decade,” including a discussion of “Can Energy Markets Be Trusted?” The latter is a lengthy article, written for the non-energy expert, describing Enron’s business model in energy trading: what went wrong at Enron; what was then discovered about market manipulation during the California energy crisis; the poor performance of FERC (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, equivalent to the SEC’s role in policing securities market) during this time; the fallout wreaked on the energy trading and merchant generator sector; and possible reforms for the future. The article will appear as a book chapter on Enron and corporate fiascos, and will also be published in full by the Houston Business and Tax Law Journal.