November 2003

Tony Chase was recently named Chairman Pro Tem of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Houston Branch. He was also appointed Chair of the Houston Zoo Development Board.

Michelle Foss spoke on U.S. natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) issues at the National Association of State Energy Officers' Annual Meeting in Austin on  September 15th; at the International Association of Drilling Contractors' Annual Meeting in Austin on September 25th; at the Natural Gas Council meeting in Washington, D.C. on October 3rd; as the keynote speaker at the International Energy Credit Association Annual Meeting on October 13th and 14th where Dr. Foss also participated on a panel, "Financial Shenanigans-Balance Sheet & Income Statement Warning Signs" with Bala Dharan of Rice University and Craig Pirrong, UH Bauer College of Business. She also spoke for the Texas Banking Commission on October 16th in Galveston.

Dr. Foss was a delegate and panelist at the World Forum on Energy Regulation in Rome, October 6th and 7th. She co-chaired the Annual North American Conference of the International Association for Energy Economics/USAEE in Mexico City. She served as an expert for a U.S. government roundtable on LNG in Washington, D.C. on October 31st. Dr. Foss was selected to join the scientific committee for the Encyclopedia of Oil & Gas, a publication to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Eni, Italy's major oil company group.

Later in the month she and the IELE staff participated in the Border Energy Forum X in Austin on October 24th and 25th. Also the IELE team won two grants from the Association Liaison Office for Bangladesh ($150,000) and U.S. Agency for International Development ($250,000 Energy Sector Governance Program) for Africa to support their New Era international capacity building program. The team also published two briefing papers, an update on Texas Electric Choice and "LNG Safety and Security."

Leslie Griffin moderated a debate at the Law Center sponsored by the Business School as part of its Business Ethics Week on November 4th about the "Implications of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act." On November 14th and 15th she will participate in a conference at the University of San Diego Law School's Institute for Law and Philosophy on "Is Religion (as a legal category) Obsolete?"

Craig Joyce submitted the manuscript for his chapter, Who Owns the Law? in One Hundred Americans Making Constitutional History (forthcoming 2004). He presented "Copyright Update: The Last 500 Years" at the Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law's 19^th Annual Fall Institute in Galveston and he attended oral argument on the U.S. Supreme Court's first-ever First Tuesday in October opening session in Washington, D.C.

Joan Krause, as Section Secretary prepared the Fall Newsletter for the AALS Section on Law & Aging. She also agreed to co-author a new health law casebook tentatively scheduled for publication in 2006.

Bryan A. Liang authored The Metabolic Syndrome: An Interplay of Multiple Subtle Cardiovascular Risk Factors, 39(10) Hospital Physician 45 (2003), Informed Consent: Confounding Legal Issues and Exceptions in the ED, 7 ED Legal Letter 1 (2003). and Comment: Patients' and Physicians' Attitudes Regarding the Disclosure of Medical Errors, 47 Survey of Anesthesiology 307 (2003). In the same publication he wrote Comment: Views of Practicing Physicians and the Public on Medical Errors, 47 Survey of Anesthesiology 306 (2003), Comment: The Impact of the United States Law on Medicine as a Profession, 47 Survey of Anesthesiology 302 (2003) and Comment: Guidelines for Perioperative Do-Not-Resuscitate Policies, 47 Survey of Anesthesiology 200 (2003).

Professor Liang was awarded a U18 contract grant from the City of Houston Department of DHHS/Department of Public Health (via the CDC) to assess HIPAA medical privacy issues and the impact on public health bioterrorism activities. He was appointed to the Manuscript Review Board, Medical Science Monitor, reviewed full grant proposals as a member of the Research Program Committee, National Patient Safety Foundation in Chicago on October 27^th and was an invited participant in Dallas on "Patient and Medical-Legal Issues" which was sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Patient Safety Foundation on October 25^th-27^th and moderated by John Nance, ABC News Safety Correspondent.

Professor Liang gave several presentations in October. He spoke on "Issues of Law in Safety Efforts-It's Not Just Doctors Anymore, Science, Law & Society" at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Department of Medical Humanities in Galveston on October 15^th. In Chicago on October 21^st, he spoke on "Surgery and Patient Safety: Legal Issues in Promoting Patient Safety, Patient Safety in Clinical Surgery" to the American College of Surgeons 89^th Clinical Congress. He spoke again at The University of Texas Medical Branch, Department of Medical Humanities in Galveston on October 22 on "Community Health and Medical Privacy: Incompatible Partners in the World of Compliance, Science, Law & Science," and gave two presentations to the 2003 Iowa Speech and Hearing Association Convention in Des Moines on October 25, the first on "HIPAA, HIPAA, Hippos, and Hamartia: Characterizing Medical Privacy and Its Fatal Flaw in Audiology Practice, Creating the Future Today and the second entitled "Fraud, Abuse, and Medical Privacy: The Interface Between Law, Ethics, and Audiology Practice, Creating the Future Today." Professor Liang's final presentation for the month of October was to the University of Denver Faculty Colloquium in Denver on "A 'Luxury' the Community Can't Afford: Patient Safety in an Era of Medical Privacy" on October 30^th.

Peter Linzer spent much of September and October as a judge of the Association of American Law Schools' Learned Paper Competition. There were about sixty entrants, with the five judges having to read about thirty papers apiece. Some have proved very interesting, others deadly, but overall, it has been a great honor and a satisfying experience.

Douglas Moll spoke at the University of North Carolina Law School on November 3^rd. His topic was "Law as a Safety Net: The Doctrine of Shareholder Oppression and the Wisdom of Protecting Shareholders Who Could Have Protected Themselves." Professor Moll also accepted an invitation from the HBA Securities Litigation & Arbitration Section to serve on a panel with Judge Tad Halbach about the doctrine of shareholder oppression in Texas. That panel presentation will be in April.

Michael A. Olivas published the results of his three year Ford Foundation-and Mellon Foundation-supported research on prepaid tuition programs, State College Savings and Prepaid Tuition Plans: A Reappraisal and Review, 32 J. of L. & Educ. 475-514 (2003). He spoke at a fifty year celebration of Brown v. Board of Education, at a symposium held in Topeka at Washburn University Law School; the talk was entitled "Brown, Hernandez, and the Desegregative Ideal: Higher Education and Racial College Identity."

Jordan Paust was a member of a panel addressing International Criminal Justice held during the Japanese Society of International Law Annual International Symposium, which adopted the theme this year of Unity in Diversity: Asian Perspectives on International Law in the 21^st Century and was held at Nagoya, Japan on October 11^th and 12^th. His paper, "U.S. Schizophrenia with Respect to Prosecution of Core International Crime" will appear later in a book prepared by the Japanese Society. On October 18^th, he was a member of a panel on the "History of International Tribunals" held during the International Law Student Association Conference on International Criminal Law: The Expansion of Individual Rights and Responsibilities for Human Rights Violations, at Loyola Law School, New Orleans. His article, Selective History of International Tribunals and Efforts Prior to Nuremberg will be published later in the ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law. On October 27^th, he was a member of a panel addressing Civil Liberties and the War on Terrorism during a Conference on International Justice at Wayne State University Law School. His article, After 9/11, 'No Neutral Ground' with Respect to Human Rights: Executive Claims and Actions of Special Concern and International Law Regarding the Disappearance of Detainees was accepted for publication in 50 Wayne Law Review (forthcoming 2004).

Nancy Rapoport participated in Teach for America Day at Furr High School.

Richard Saver's publication, Reimbursing New Technologies: Why are the Courts Judging Experimental Medicine?, 44 Stanford L. Rev. 1095 (1992), was cited and relied upon by the New York Civil Court, Kings County, in its recently released decision in Oceanside Medical Healthcare, P.C. v. Progressive Insurance, 2002 N.Y. Slip Op. 50188(U). The court found that the insurance company defendant had not sufficiently disputed the medical necessity of a diagnostic procedure performed on the patient's spine and that the insurer improperly denied payment for the videoflouroscopy.

Robert Schuwerk delivered a paper at an ethics symposium at the South Texas College of Law entitled "The Law Professor As Fiduciary: What Duties Do We Owe To Our Students?" He also filed a Brief Amicus Curiae on behalf of the petitioner in Case No. 03-0445, currently pending before the Supreme Court of Texas.

Ronald Scott, Research Professor spoke to liver patients about health insurance issues on September 14^th. The Galveston event was sponsored by the American Liver Foundation.

Joseph Vail advised and participated in a training video prepared and filmed by the ABA in Philadelphia on October 26^th and 27^th. The video is a training tool for pro bono lawyers on how to present a case before the immigration court. On October 15^th he presented a paper and spoke at the University of Texas Annual Conference on Immigration and Nationality Law in San Antonio, Texas on asylum and refugee law. On September 25^th he spoke to the Houston Bar Association on the impact of the USA Patriot Act on immigrants. And on August 28^th Professor Vail spoke to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Houston Chapter on deportation and removal procedures.

Greg Vetter accepted an offer for publication of his summer project article, The Collaborative Integrity of Open Source Software, in the Utah L. Rev. (forthcoming 2004).

Jacqueline Weaver spoke at the State Bar of Texas, Advanced Oil, Gas and Energy Institute on October 17th. The topic was "Enron and Energy Markets: Myths, Ideology and the Public Trust."