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

June, 2004

Tony Chase was invited by Senators Kay Hutchison & Rick Santorum to deliver the keynote address on Capitol Hill at their Leadership Summit on April 27, 2004.

Craig Joyce completed Intellectual Property: United States Law for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Legal History (forthcoming). Professor Joyce also has been selected to write a chapter on the “theoretical underpinnings” of U.S. intellectual property law with co-authors from Chicago, Columbia, NYU, Georgetown, Boalt and Michigan and to write the historical preface to three new volumes of U.S. Supreme Court in-chambers opinions. Professor Joyce also attended a planning meeting for authors of a forthcoming book on intellectual property law in Napa Valley, IPIL’s own conference in Santa Fe, and the American Law Institute’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Joan Krause served on the Nominating Committee for the Health Law Scholars’ Workshop in May. The Workshop was sponsored by the Center for Health Law Studies at Saint Louis University School of Law and the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics (ASLME). On June 4th, she served as moderator for a panel on Developments in Drug, Device and Supplement Law at the 28th Annual ASLME Health Law Teachers Conference.

Peter Linzer is a coordinator of the 150^th anniversary conference on the famous contracts case of Hadley v. Baxendale, which is being held in Gloucester, England, this June. Because of family obligations, Professor Linzer will be unable to attend the conference but he will write an analysis of the papers given, which will appear in a symposium issue of the Texas Wesleyan Law Review.

Douglas Moll and Robert Ragazzo have received a contract from Aspen Publishers for a treatise on The Law of Close Corporations.  Professor Moll’s article Shareholder Oppression & ‘Fair Value’ : Of Discounts, Dates, and Dastardly Deeds in the Close Corporation was recently listed on SSRN’s Top Ten download list for the journal Corporate Law: Corporate & Takeover Law. The article has been accepted for publication by the Duke Law Journal.

Michael A. Olivas delivered invited testimony before the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Investment, U.S. House of Representatives, on Sec. 529 plans (such as the Texas Tomorrow Funds and other prepaid and college savings plans). Professor Olivas is for them.

Jordan Paust was on two panels during a Conference on International Cooperation and Counterterrorism at the University of Trento, Italy on May 27-28th. He will also be a panel member at a Conference on International Law Challenges: Homeland Security and Combating Terrorism at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island on June 24-25th. His on-line essay The Common Plan to Violate the Geneva Conventions is available at http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/paust2.php.

Nancy Rapoport moderated one of the LSAC plenary sessions titled “Thinking Outside the Checkbox” at the Annual Meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Ira Shepard in May spoke to the Wednesday Tax Forum on “Current Developments in Federal Taxation” and to the Hampton Roads Tax Forum (Norfolk, VA) on “Recent Developments in Federal Taxation.” In June, he plans to speak to the Wednesday Tax Forum, to the American Institute of Federal Taxation (Birmingham, AL), to the Houston IRS CPA Society, and to the New Mexico Tax Symposium.

Ronald Turner’s solicited article, Grutter, the Diversity Justification, and Workplace Affirmative Action will appear in a forthcoming issue of Volume 43 of the Brandeis Law Journal.

Greg Vetter presented on Open Source Software issues at the University of Texas School of Law’s 17th Annual Computer and Technology Law Institute held in Austin, Texas on May 20-21th. In addition he accepted an offer to publish his paper entitled Infectious Open Source Software: Spreading Incentives or Promoting Resistance? in the Rutgers Law Journal of Rutgers University School of Law-Camden.

Jacqueline Weaver will be the luncheon speaker on June 16th at the monthly meeting of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators. Her topic will be “Mechanisms for Sustainable Development in the Petroleum E & P Sector.”

Steve Zamora and Michael Olivas on May 26-30th attended a conference on international legal education in Hawaii, sponsored by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). The conference entitled Educating Lawyers for Transnational Challenges attracted 140 legal educators from around the world to discuss the implications of globalization for legal education. After three days of discussions, in both plenary sessions and small groups, the participants agreed to the adoption of a resolution to create an international association of law schools, which will be the first global association of its kind. The association will strive to improve legal education by expanding opportunities for curricular change, information sharing and cross-border exchanges.