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

April 2008

Previous editions of Faculty Focus can be accessed through the Faculty Focus Website.

 

 Richard Alderman was one of six University of Houston faculty members invited to become a member of Phi Kappa Phi, a national honor society. His article,” The Future of Consumer Law in the United States-Hello Arbitration, Bye-Bye Courts, So-Long Consumer Protection” has been accepted for publication in the Yearbook of Consumer Law, published by Ashgate Press. His recently published article, “Attorney’s Fees and Breach of Warranty,” 10 J. Consumer and Comm. L. 56 (2007), has been selected for reprint in Breach of Contract, to be published by Amicus Press, an Indian publisher. He spoke at and organized the People’s Law School in Corpus Christi , gave the Keynote address to the GLO Certified Public Accounts luncheon, and spoke to University of Houston Retirees, the El Paso Bar Association, and the HAY Center.

 

Aaron Bruhl presented a paper on Supreme Court procedure at a conference for junior federal courts scholars in Washington, DC.

 

Barbara Evans signed a contract to write a chapter on privacy law for the American College of Clinical Pharmacy’s treatise, Pharmacogenomics, 2nd edition. Her article on judicial review of bioethically problematic legislation will appear in the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law. She is serving on the Duke University Clinical and Translational Sciences External Advisory Committee. She is featured in the New York Academy of Science March e-Briefing on toxicogenomics and molecular diagnostics. She discussed medical device regulatory issues as part of the Rice University, “Developments in Bioengineering Technology,” lecture series. She peer-reviewed a proposal to develop a pharmaceutical database under the UH Grants to Enhance and Advance Research Program and developed comments for the ABA Administrative Law Section on a proposed state policy on use of physician’s medical orders in managing end-of-life care.

 

Victor Flatt was quoted in the Houston Chronicle, Climate Wire, and the SLC Financial Report on the University of Houston Law Center’s upcoming class in the current and future practice of CO2 trading. The class will be conducted with the Bauer College of Business. Professor Flatt’s article, “Gasping for Breath: The Administrative Flaws of Federal Hazardous Air Pollution Regulation and What We Can Learn From the States,” was selected by the Journal of Environmental and Land Use Law as one of 22 finalists (out of 200 published articles) as one of the best environmental articles of 2007. His article, “Legislative Temperature for Climate Change Legislation,” from the the Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy will be reprinted in the International Journal of Environmental Law, a worldwide compendium.

 

Lonny Hoffman’s article, “Burn Up the Chaff With Unquenchable Fire: What Two Doctrinal Intersections Can Teach Us About Judicial Power Over Pleadings,” was accepted for publication by the Boston University Law Review. The article was recently listed on SSRN’s Top Ten Download list for LC: Litigants & the Judiciary (February 2, 2008 to April 2, 2008). Professor Hoffman presented earlier versions of this paper in February and March 2008 at faculty colloquia at Vanderbilt University Law School, University of Cincinnati College of Law, Florida State University College of Law, Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law, Roger Williams University School of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law and Stetson University School of Law. Also in March, Prof. Hoffman’s article, “Burdens of Jurisdictional Proof,” which concerns the Class Action Fairness Act, was published by the Alabama Law Review (59: 409). Professor Hoffman is finishing up his spring semester visiting at Vanderbilt University School of Law.

 

Craig Joyce chaired this year’s Baker Botts Lecture, headlined by Robert P. Merges, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich, & Rosato Professor of Law and Technology at the University of California-Berkeley.

 

Joan Krause presented,” An Overview of Medicare and Health Care Fraud” on Feb. 18 at the UH College of Pharmacy. On Feb. 14, Professor Krause spoke to the Houston Chronicle about a lawsuit involving Ben Taub’s refusal to release medical records to a reporter.

 

Brent Newton’s article,” Almendarez-Torres and the Anders Ethical Dilemma,” was accepted for publication by the Houston Law Review in the November 2008 edition.

 

Raymond Nimmer delivered speeches in Bangkok, Thailand; Kula Lumpur, Malaysia; and Seoul, Korea, at programs sponsored by an international computer and informational law association. He spoke on the effect of competition norms on technological standards-setting organizations. He returned from Asia and delivered a speech to a joint annual meeting of two library associations in Alexandria, Virginia. His topic was, “Information Wars: The Fight for the Soul of Intellectual Property Law in the Digital Age.”

 

Michael A. Olivas published several legal entries in reference books and legal encyclopedias. “State College Savings Plans and Prepaid Tuition Plans: A Reappraisal and Review,” Chapter 3, pp. 41-69 and, “The DREAM Act and In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students,” Chapter 25, pp. 337-348, were published in B. Lauren, ed., The College Admissions Officer’s Guide (DC: AACRAO, 2008). In the Gale Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (2008), he wrote entries for the “University of Missouri v. Horowitz,”, “Governance of Colleges and Universities,” and “Non-Citizens and Federalism.” He also published the entry for, “Hernandez v. Texas,” in the Sage Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society (2008). Professor Olivas was elected a Fellow in the American Bar Association.

 

Tom Oldham prepared a Community Property bar exam question for the Summer 2008 California Bar. He published his first article in French this month in the Canadian Journal of Family Law.

 

Bruce Patsner wrote a lengthy book review for the DePaul Journal of Health Care Law on The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, by Stiglitz and Bilmes. It will be published in Volume 11, Number 3 (2008) of the journal.  Professor Patsner and Professor Seth Chandler have co-authored two articles accepted for publication: a law review article, “Pharmacy Compounding of Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT): A Proposed New Approach to Justify FDA Regulation of These Three Drugs,” which will be published in 63:2 Food and Drug Law Journal (2008); and a shorter article for the Journal of the American Medical Association on Medicaid Fraud for their “Virtual Mentor” series.

 

Jordan Paust gave lectures on “Human Rights Violations and War Crimes During the Bush Administration’s Responses to Terror”, at Stanford Law School on March 19, the University of California at Berkeley School of Law on March 20, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law on March 27, 2008. Prof. Paust was also the keynote speaker at the Conference on the Individual and Customary International Law Formation at the School of Law, Indiana, Bloomington, on April 4. He was the keynote speaker for the ASIL Southwest Regional Jessup International Moot Court competition, Feb. 23, at the University of Houston Law Center and was one of the judges of the final round during the competition. In Washington, D.C. in early April, he was one of the judges in the World Semi-Final rounds of the Jessup competition.

 

Sandra Guerra Thompson participated in a symposium entitled,” Convicting the Innocent” at Texas Tech Law School of April 4. She is completing work on an essay entitled, “ The Third Phase of the Innocence Movement-The Case for Enforceable Rules and Incentives,” which will be published in the symposium issue of the Texas Tech Law Review.

 

Greg Vetter presented, ”Slouching Toward Open Innovation: Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for Electronic Health Information” at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis on Friday, April 4th, at an interdisciplinary conference held by the Center for Research on Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CRIE); the conference title being: Open-Source and Proprietary Models of Innovation: Beyond Ideology.

 

Jacqueline Weaver spoke at the New Zealand Petroleum Association conference in Auckland, New Zealand on March 10, at the invitation of the Crown Minerals Department. She spoke on the future of a petroleum-based economy. The conference is a biannual meeting of about 450 oil industry professionals. At the conclusion of the 3-day conference, she was awarded a speaker’s trophy for best presentation.

 

Steve Zamora was asked to give the Wing Tat Lee Lecture in International and Comparative Law at Loyola University School of Law in Chicago, on April 8. The title of his lecture was, “NAFTA’s Missing Social Agenda: The Social Repercussions of Economic Integration.” From April 21 to 15, he will give a course on International Litigation in U.S. Courts at the Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia, as part of their graduate program in international corporate law.

 

 

 

 

Helen Boyce, Editor