Faculty Focus is a monthly
publication documenting the activities, accomplishments, and honors of the
University of
Houston Law Center Faculty.
December
2006
Christine
Agnew was elected Secretary of the
American Bar Association Section of Taxation for a second term. In
addition, she was invited to join the Houston Tax Roundtable. She also
published several columns on partnership and trust tax issues in the Journal of Passthrough
Entities.
Richard
Alderman published Consumer Credit and the Law, co-authored
with De Pridgen and published by Thomson/West, and Client’s Page—Consumer Arbitration, 69 Texas Bar J. 921 (2006). He also
organized and spoke at the first People’s Law School
held in Corpus
Christi, co-sponsored by the Corpus Christi Bar
Association. He spoke on teaching consumer law at the National Conference for
Consumer Attorneys in Miami, Florida, gave a presentation on consumer law at the
Justices of the Peace retreat and spoke on consumer arbitration at the
University of
Texas Bankruptcy
Conference. He also taught a class on fiscal
responsibility to students at Episcopal High School, consumer law to the
University of Houston paralegals and gave numerous talks to local civic
organizations including B’nai B’rith, St. John Vianney Seniors, the Heights
Rotary, and the Asian Assistance Association, He received a grant in the amount
of $220,000 to assist Katrina Victims in addition to $44, 000 awarded to the
Center in October. The grants were awarded by the Houston Galveston Area Council
and will be used to fund various efforts designed to help resolve the continuing
legal problems of Katrina victims.
Johnny R.
Buckles presented “Exempt Organizations:
Terror, Politics, and Dirty Dollars” at the 54th Annual Taxation Conference,
sponsored by the University of Texas School of Law. He was also solicited
to submit a brief article (based upon his article forthcoming in the Cincinnati
Law Review) discussing his proposal to reform the law governing the political
campaign activity of tax-exempt charities to Administrative & Regulatory Law News, the magazine of the
Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice of the American Bar
Association.
Anne
Chandler was a panelist on Native American
and Immigration Clinics at the 2006 Mountain West Clinical Conference held at
University of
Las Vegas on November 17th.
She talked on the Law Center’s Clinical Legal Programs’ efforts to enhance
student skills through interviewing and representation of unaccompanied
immigrant girls and boys that are detained in southeast Texas.
David R.
Dow spoke on "Priests and Prophets and
Constitutional Adjudication" at the University of Tulsa, on November 15th. His op-ed,
Hanging Saddam High Would be Our
Low, appeared in the Houston Chronicle on Sunday, November
12th.
Victor
Flatt spoke at the Georgia State
University Series on Urban Environmental Problems, on November 6th. His
op-ed on whether the EPA should approve a revision of Houston’s ozone compliance
date was published in the Houston
Chronicle on December 3rd. He will also address the International
Association of Energy Economists on December 7th, on the likelihood and type of
regulation that can be expected on climate change.
Laura
Hermer presented to physicians and
medical, nursing and allied health students on the present and future of health
coverage access in Texas at the Frontera
Society Lecture, Galveston,
Texas.
Joan
Krause spoke on “Fraud in Universal
Coverage: The Usual Suspects (and Then Some)” at the Kansas Law Review
2006 Annual Symposium: The Massachusetts Plan and the Future of Universal
Coverage, on November 10th.
Douglas
Moll (with Bob Ragazzo) completed the Teacher’s Manual
for their casebook Closely Held Business
Organizations: Cases, Materials, and Problems (West
Publishing). The manual was published in October. Professors Moll
and Ragazzo have also submitted the manuscript for the statutory supplement to
accompany their casebook. It will be published in December 2006.
Also in response to an invitation by the faculty enrichment committee, Professor
Moll spoke to the faculty at the University of Oregon on minority oppression issues in
limited liability companies.
Tom
Oldham was selected as a member of the
board of editors of the ABA Family Law Quarterly for
2007.
Michael A.
Olivas spoke on the DREAM Act and
immigration developments in higher education law in two lectures, at the
University of North Carolina and the UNC Law School. He served on the doctoral
dissertation committee of Dr. Gloria Crisp, in the UH College of Education, and
he gave a briefing to a dozen news reporters on local ordinances that
(unconstitutionally) attempt to undertake immigration functions. He is also
serving on a Boalt Hall working group that is planning a 25th anniversary
commemoration of 1982’s Plyler v Doe, the Houston-area case concerning
undocumented children in the Houston area; the Boalt Hall Warren Institute will
hold a national conference on the subject in May, 2007. In addition,
he was appointed to chair the Governing Board of the AAUP Legal Defense Fund
(American Association of University Professors), which contributes to the legal
defense of faculty members who are removed from their positions or discriminated
against for their viewpoints. He also serves on the AAUP Litigation Committee,
which determines which cases the AAUP will undertake as participants or as
amicus.
Nancy
Rapoport has been asked to contribute a
chapter to Collier on Bankruptcy
on the liability of officers and director of debtor corporations. She has
also become a member of the American Board of Certification, and she will be
speaking three times at the AALS Annual Meeting; once as moderator for a
workshop on the ratings game, once on “Legal Ethics CLE in the Law School
Setting: Can It Be Practical, Academic, and Interesting at the Same Time?” and
once on “What I Wish I Had Known Then: A Conversation Among Deans”. She
will also speak twice at the National Conference of Bankruptcy
Judges.
Ben Sheppard published a solicited article titled
The Moth, the Light and the United States’
Severability Doctrine in the October 2006 issue of the Journal of International Arbitration. He also spoke on the
presentation of evidence of witnesses in international arbitration at the
23rd AAA/ICC/ICSID Joint Colloquium on International Arbitration conducted
at the headquarters of the World Bank in Washington, D.C. on November 17th.
Don
Tomlinson gave a talk on November 9th to the
Northwest Houston Women’s Business Forum at Champions Golf Club titled
“Intellectual Property Basics.” He will give the same talk to the Sterling Bank
(Cypress)
Development Board on December 12th, at Champions Golf
Club.
Joseph
Vail attended a Department of Justice
training program in Harlingen from November 7th-9th for a one year
grant to the Immigration Clinic to present legal orientation programs. On
November 14th-16th he worked with an ABA funded legal aid group (PROBAR) also in
Harlingen and three UHCL immigration clinic students to successfully gain asylum
before the immigration court for a Somali refugee. On November 30th he trained a
Catholic immigrants rights group in College Station on proposed immigration
legislation and on December 1st he gave a presentation to the Houston Young
Lawyers’ Association on representing minors seeking refugee
protection.
Greg
Vetter moderated the Patent Reform panel
at the University
of Texas at Austin School
of Law conference Frontiers of IP, held on November 10th-11th, by the Center for
Law, Business & Economics. Professor Vetter co-chaired with Professor Craig Joyce the Thirteenth Annual
Katz-Kiley Lecture on November 15th, "The Invention of Invention: A
History of Nonobviousness," presented by Professor John F. Duffy of the
George
Washington University Law School.
Jacqueline Weaver spoke to a class of 40 LL.M. students
from St. Gallens University at the University of Texas School of Law on the
subject of international joint operating agreements and the future of our
petroleum-based economy.
Harriet Richman, Editor