Faculty Focus
Faculty Focus is a monthly publication
documenting the activities, accomplishments, and honors of the
February 2006
Marcilynn A. Burke presented her work-in-progress, “Much Ado About Nothing: Kelo v. City of New London, Sweet Home v. Babbitt, and Other Tales from the Supreme Court” at the Mid-Atlantic People of Color Law Scholarship Conference in Washington, DC on January 28th.
Darren Bush presented a draft of his article, Mission Creep: Antitrust Exemptions and Immunities as Applied to (De)Regulated Industries, at the S.J. Quinney College of Law Symposium, Recurring Issues in Antitrust Enforcement Professor Bush organized and moderated the symposium that honored his retiring colleague, Professor John J. Flynn. The article will be published in the Utah Law Review. Professor Bush’s affidavit before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on detecting market power in electricity markets and contestable load analysis (available at http://www.appanet.org/files/PDFs/APPATAPS_Searchable.pdf) was cited approvingly by the Federal Trade Commission in its comments to the FERC on the same topic (available at http://www.ftc.gov/be/V060004.pdf.) Moreover, a transcript of his oral testimony before the Antitrust Modernization Commission in December is now available at http://www.amc.gov/commission_hearings/statutory_immunities_exemptions.htm, as well as his written and supplemental testimony. Finally, his article, coauthored with Professor Betsy Gelb, titled The Marketing Consequences of Competitor Lawsuits, is now published in the Winder 2006 edition of the MIT Sloan Management Review (available at http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2006/winter/08/).
Victor Flatt presented a CLE for the Stonewall Bar Association, entitled “Military Recruitment on College Campuses” and was appointed to the Greater Houston Partnership’s Environment committee. He continues to work with the Mayor White, and the Houston Endowment on air toxics issues. Professor Flatt has met with Christian Turner, the First Secretary for Energy and Environment at the British Embassy to discuss global warming initiatives, and has been invited to speak at the British Government’s annual global warming conference in London in April.
Gidi presented a paper at the AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, DC on integrating transnational and comparative law issues into the first year law school curriculum. The paper will be published in the Journal of Legal Education.
Craig Joyce was reappointed to the Board of Editors of H-LAW, the Humanities Social Sciences On-Line discussion network of the American Society for Legal History. Professors Joyce and Vetter announced plans for the Third Annual Baker Botts Lecture on March 28, 2006, featuring Judge Arthur J. Gajarsa of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
Joan H. Krause was interviewed by the New York Times on January 27th regarding a health care fraud investigation, and subsequently quoted in an article on January 28th.
Raymond Nimmer presented the keynote address as the International Technology Law Association Asian Law Conference in Bangalore, India. The speech was titled "Law and Dust Bunnies: Coping with and Relating to Law in Transition". He also presented a paper on electronic commerce developments at the Tenth Annual Electronic Commerce Institute, in Seattle, Washington.
Tom Oldham’s review of David Plotz’s, The Genius Factory, has been published in the Family Law Quarterly.
Michael A. Olivas delivered the Keynote Address to a group of Texas college trustees and administrators meeting at the UH-Downtown Campus, on the issue of admissions and demographics in the State of Texas. In addition, he delivered the Annual Distinguished Lecture at St. Thomas University Law School (FL), on immigration, terrorism, and higher education.
Jordan Paust’s Op-Ed, Executive Power: War on the Constitution was published in the National Law Journal on January 30th.
Nancy Rapoport’s article, Eating Our Cake and Having It, Too: Why Real Change Is So Difficult in Law Schools, a solicited manuscript for a symposium at Indiana University-Bloomington School of Law—“The Next Generation of Law School Rankings” has been published at 81 Ind. L.J. 359 (2006). Another solicited manuscript, Bankruptcy Ethics Issues for Solos and Small Firms, has been published Attorney Liability in Bankruptcy (Corinne Cooper, ed. & Catherine E. Vance, Contributing Ed., ABA 2006). In addition, Enron and the New Disinterestedness—The Foxes Are Guarding the Henhouse, was published at 13 Am. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev. 521 (2005) (solicited manuscript). Finally Dean Rapoport is working on two other solicited manuscripts. The first is titled, Lord of the Flies: The Development of Rules Within an Adolescent Culture, in Screening Justice (forthcoming 2006) and the second is Decanal Haiku, 37 Toledo L. Rev. ___ (2005). She was also appointed to a three-year term on the Rice University Alumni Board.
Robert Schuwerk gave a presentation on pedagogical and grading innovations at a breakout session conducted in conjunction with the day long “Whirlwind of Law School” at the 2006 AALS Annual Meeting.
Spencer Simons' article Navigating through the Fog: Teaching Legal Research and Writing Students to Master Indeterminacy through Structure and Process, has been accepted by the Journal of Legal Education.
Sandra Guerra Thompson completed work on two articles. The first piece entitled, Evading Miranda: How Seibert and Patane Failed to “Save” Miranda will be published this spring as part of a symposium issue on Miranda in the Valparaiso Law Review. The other piece is entitled, The Booker Project: The Future of Federal Sentencing. This article serves to introduce the symposium issue of the Houston Law Review by the same title. The symposium was sponsored by the Criminal Justice Institute, which Professor Thompson directs. She organized the conference and panel discussions for the symposium which took place in November, 2005 at the Law Center. She was also quoted by the Houston Chronicle in an article on a local judge’s comments during the sentencing of prostitutes and was quoted in the Spanish-language newspaper, La Semana, regarding reports of crimes being committed in Houston by Katrina evacuees.
Greg Vetter presented his paper, entitled Embedding Thickets in Information Security?: Cryptography Patenting and Strategic Implications for Information Technology, at an interdisciplinary conference at the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida on February 3rd-4th. The conference was entitled “Data Devolution”, sponsored by the Center for Information Research (www.centerforinformationresearch.org) at the Levin College of Law.