Faculty Focus is a monthly publication documenting the activities, accomplishments, and honors of  the University of Houston Law Center Faculty.

April 2004

Richard Alderman accepted a volunteer position with the Serbian CRDA Project to develop and define the Serbian "Organization of Consumers" long term plans and activities. He will be in Serbia for two weeks of meetings with legislators, consumers groups and law professors to discuss consumer issues. The Project is funded by ACD/VOCA, a private economic development organization. Professor Alderman also published Consumer Law in the Fifth Circuit survey issue of the Texas Tech Law Review. He spoke at the Financial Fraud Forum in Miami, Florida on identity theft, and gave local talks to the Fort Bend County Bar Association, Foster High School, Pearland Chamber of Commerce, and Exxon retirees.

Johnny Rex Buckles presented " Subchapter J: The Very Basics" to the Midland Business and Estate Council on March 9th. He also agreed to author two chapters in the most recent edition of Estate Planning Law and Taxation by Professor David Westfall and George Mair.

Darren Bush joined other antitrust law & economics professors in filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court of the United States in the F. Hoffman LaRoche(petitioners) v. Empagran S.A. (respondents) matter involving the international price fixing of vitamins. The brief is available at http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/recent2/307.pdf. Professor Bush was also quoted in the www.washingpost.com column Filter on issues involving the European Commission's decision in the Microsoft case. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4159-2004Mar18_2.html. Professor Bush explained to the Washington Post, "I have not made up my mind quite yet whether the EU remedy will be effective. Forcing Microsoft to offer two versions (one with the media player and one without) might be problematic. It is akin to competing with yourself at checkers: You know well in advance which side is going to win no matter how fair you attempt to be in your play. Allowing Microsoft to set up the terms of competition among its two products will eventually lead to consumers seeking the integrated windows version as Microsoft hamstrings the other version. And Microsoft may have tremendous incentive and ability to hamstring the stripped version, depending on the language of the Commission's final order."

Professor Bush's article with John Flynn titled, The Misuse and Abuse of the Tunney Act was nominated for the Jerry Cohen Award for Best Antitrust Scholarship for the year 2003. Unfortunately, since Professor Bush's coauthor is a member of the awards committee, the article was removed from consideration. Finally Professor Bush attended the ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting at the end of March.

John J. Douglass accepted an invitation to be an advisory member to the National Center for Prosecution Ethics sponsored by the University of South Carolina Law School and the National College of District Attorneys.

David R. Dow's recent and forthcoming presentations include, "Post-Conviction Use of DNA Testing" at the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, Houston, Texas on January 16th, "The Death Penalty in Texas", at the American Constitution Society, Houston, Texas on February 12th, "The Ten Most Important Words in the United States Constitution" at the Great Conversation, University of Houston Honors College on March 31st, "Post-Conviction Challenges to Chemical Components in Lethal Injection" at Rice University on April 1st, " Post-Conviction Death Penalty Litigation at University of Mississippi College of Law on April 16th, and on July 27^th  he will talk to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in San Antonio, Texas. Professor Dow has completed and is presently circulating the manuscript to The Extraordinary Execution of Billy Vickers, the Banality of Death and the Demise of Post-Conviction Review (with Jim Marcus, Morris Moon, Jared Tyler, and Greg Wiercioch).

Professor Dow's editorial, Sutton's Limbo: DA Refuses to Admit Mistake (with Senator Rodney Ellis) appeared in The Houston Chronicle, on March 12th. Also his column Executions and the Rule-of-Four appeared in the National Law Journal.

Meredith Duncan was interviewed for an article that appeared in the March 2004 issue of Texas Magazine discussing personal injury attorneys and various types of fee arrangements.

Victor B. Flatt will be representing Senators Clinton, Boxer, Kerry, Jeffords, and Chaffee in an amicus brief challenging the New Routine Repair and Maintenance Rrules put forward by the Bush EPA under the Clean Air Act. The case entitled, New York v. EPA is on an expedited briefing schedule in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Sandy Gaines's article, Reflexive Law as a Legal Paradigm for Sustainable Development, 10 Buff. Envtl. L.J. 1-24 (2002-2003) has been selected as one of the finalists for the annual compendium of the 10 best environmental law articles sponsored by Land Use and Environment Law Review.

Leslie Griffin was a panelist at the Science Café, held March 31st on the subject of "Cloning and Ethics". She also submitted an encyclopedia entry on "euthanasia" to the Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity.

Craig Joyce completed three entries for the Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (forthcoming 2005) and was selected to write the chapter on theoretical underpinning of US intellectual property law for a book with co-authors from Chicago, Columbia, NYU, Georgetown, Boalt, and Michigan. Professor Joyce's book, edited for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, The Majesty of the Law was published in paperback.

Joan Krause was elected in a mid-year leadership change, Chair of the AALS Section on Aging & the Law and was on the Planning Committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Texas Department of Health "Community Public Health Legal Preparedness Workshop," held at the Law Center on March 26th.  She completed a solicited article, Health Care Fraud and Quality of Care: A Patient- Centered Approach which will appear in the Journal of Health Law later this year and her article A Conceptual Model of Health Care Fraud Enforcement was published in the Journal of Law & Policy.

Bryan Liang's piece, A Policy of System Safety: Changing Law and Medicine to Reduce Medical Errors was accepted for publication in the Harvard Health Policy Review. He gave three presentations: "Medical Error and Law: Issues Facing Pharmacists in Participating in Patient Safety Work" to the American Pharmacists Association Annual Meeting and Exposition in Seattle on March 27th, "Interdisciplinary Activities in Health Law & Policy: Opportunity for Creating Social Good," at California Western School of Law Board of Trustees Annual Meeting in San Diego on March 26th, (with Thomas McAfee), and "Putting the Patient into Patient Safety," Second Annual San Diego Patient Safety Conference, at San Diego Center for Patient Safety, University of California San Diego School of Medicine, in San Diego on March 19th. Professor Liang was also invited to speak at the Reno Conference on Dyslipidemia on "Patient Safety Issues and Legal Reform: Practice Implications" in Reno on June 10th; he was invited to speak at the World Congress of Medical Law, on "Bioterrorism and the Public Health: Issues in Public Health Surveillance and Reporting", in Sydney, Australia on August 1-5, 2004. Professor Liang was invited to participate in the Expert Seminar Series 2004, on "Law, Ethics, and Audiology Practice," AudiologyOnline.com on September 2004 and he was invited to speak on "Health Policy and Law: Beginning the Reform Process to Address Impediments to Safety," The 2004 Clinical Congress of American College of Surgeons, in New Orleans on October 2004. Professor Liang testified before the Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Competition in Washington, DC on "Brand Name-Authorized Generics Strategy: A Policy Assessment" on March 23rd.

Douglas Moll's article, Shareholder Oppression & "Fair Value": Of Discounts, Dates, and Dastardly Deeds in the Close Corporation was accepted for publication by the Duke Law Journal. Professor Moll also appeared on Channel 2 (NBC) in an interview about the Martha Stewart verdict. The interview aired on March 5 & 6.

Ray Nimmer delivered a speech at Stanford University on "Privacy, Data Control and Contracts". He will present a paper on "The Commercial Law Aspects of Licensing" in Chicago in April at a program sponsored by DePaul Law School and the U.S. Commercial Law League. Also in April, in Toronto he will give a presentation on "The Developing Law of Digital Transactions: An International Issue". Professor Nimmer also completed a two hundred page update for his Treatise on Information Law for West Publishing.

Tom Oldham has been invited to present a paper to the World Congress on "Families, Youth and the Rights of the Child" in Cape Town in the summer 2005. He has also been invited to draft a community property question for the California Bar Exam.

Michael A. Olivas published IRRIRA, the Dream, and Undocumented College Student Residency, in 6 Bender's Immigration Bulletin 327-329 (March, 2004). Ironically it was to be reprinted from the forthcoming 30 (2) Journal of College and University Law (2004) which was slightly delayed so the reprinted version actually appeared in print before the original which will be longer. He discussed the paper in Lonny Hoffman's Colloquium class. His October, 2003 article on State Prepaid Plans which was published in the Journal of Law and Education was recently reprinted in Tax Law Abstracts: Tax Law & Policy. He was invited to propose editing a volume in the Foundation Press series of law stories; his would be Education Law Stories, a collection of essays on important education cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. He has a forthcoming chapter in the series, in Peter Schuck and David Martin, eds. Immigration Law Stories entitled The Story of Plyler v. Doe, The Education of Undocumented Children, and the Polity, which will appear in 2005. He also chaired the ABA/AALS inspection team that visited the UC-Davis Law School where they still tell David Crump stories.

Jordan Paust was a panel member during the 25th Anniversary of the Michigan Journal of International Law meeting in Ann Arbor. His paper The Reality of Private Rights, Duties, and Participation in the International Legal Process will be published later in the Michigan Journal. His essay Equal Treaty Rights, and Forum Non Conveniens appears in the recent issue of the Houston Journal of International Law.

Nancy Rapoport chaired the site inspection of the University of Washington School of Law, Seattle.

Richard Saver is writing a chapter on Physician Conflicts of Interest in Health Care Allocation Decisions for a new health policy book, tentatively titled The Frontiers of Fairness to be published by the University of Toronto Press. The book project will be coordinated by the Health Law and Policy Group, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.

Ira B. Shepard spent the morning of St. Patrick's Day speaking on "Recent Developments in Federal Income Taxation" at the Tax Executives Institute Tax School and the lunch hour of that day speaking on the same topic to the Houston Bar Association Tax Section. He also spoke on "Current Developments in Federal Taxation" to the Wednesday Tax Forum in March, as he does each month. In April he will speak at the University of North Carolina Tax Institute (with Professor Martin McMahon of the University of Florida Law School) and the American Petroleum Institute Tax Forum on "Recent Developments in Federal Income Taxation." He will also lead a panel discussion at the API Tax Forum on "The Impact of Sarbanes-Oxley on the Corporate Tax Function"; the other participants will be Richard Husseini of Baker Botts and Sandy MacFarlane of ChevronTexaco. He also will chair the planning meeting of the University of Texas Tax Conference held in April, and on May 1st he will attend the 50th Reunion of the Bronx High School of Science class of 1954.

 Sandra Guerra Thompson was interviewed on KPFT radio regarding a Fifth Circuit search and seizure case, by the Houston Press on law enforcement excessive force issues, and by the Houston Chronicle regarding the release of parolees in Houston. She appeared on Channel 2 News and spoke on the indictment of a Houston Police Officer on murder charges.

Joseph Vail has given (or will be giving in the next month) the following training presentations for attorneys: Training on the" Violence Against Women Act for Pro Bono Attorneys" on February 28th in Houston, South Texas College of Law, "Grounds or Inadmissibility and Deportability" on March 25th in Houston, University of Texas Conference Law School, "Fundamentals of Immigration Removal Proceeding" on April 1st and 2nd, Hilton Hotel in Houston, UHLC, "Asylum Training for Pro Bono Attorneys" at the Houston Asylum Pro Bono Program on April 24th, American Immigration Lawyers Association, "Immigration Litigation Training" on May 21st-23rd in Denver, and Texas Southern University Law School, "Removal Proceedings in Immigration Court" on May 24th-27th in Houston.

Greg Vetter presented on Open Source Software issues at the Texas State Bar's 17^th Annual Intellectual Property Law Course held in San Antonio in early March. In addition, on March 26th-27th as a presenter, he attended the Conference on Intellectual Property, Sustainable Development, and Endangered Species: Understanding the Dynamics of the Information Ecosystems, sponsored by the Intellectual Property and Communications Law Program at the Michigan State University College of Law. At the conference he presented a new paper entitled "Infectious Open Source Software: Spreading Incentives or Promoting Resistance?" during a panel entitled Open Source, Open Contents: Solutions or Problems?.

Jacqueline Weaver was invited to speak on "Fertile Soil for Litigation: Some Thoughts on Deregulated Energy Markets" as a panel member at a program addressing Energy Litigation Trends 2004, sponsored by Fulbright Jaworski at the St. Regis in Houston on April 20.