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

August 2009

Previous editions of Faculty Focus can be accessed here 

Richard Alderman submitted the 2009-10 manuscript for his Consumer Law book, published by Imprimatur Press, and the updates for his two-volume Consumer Credit/Consumer Protection book, published by Thomson-West. He taught a short course in American consumer law to 46 LLM students from numerous different countries at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. He spoke on the DTPA at the Texas State Bar Convention and gave two presentations at the State Bar’s Advanced Consumer and Commercial Law Conference. He also lectured on consumer law to the Credit Coalition’s fiscal responsibility class. The biggest event of the month will be taking his son, Willie, to the University of Colorado, where he will begin his freshman year.

Seth Chandler’s one hundred and twelve Demonstrations have been placed on YouTube and set to music (not of Prof. Chandler’s choosing). You can view the video collection at www.youtube.com by searching on Seth Chandler Demonstrations.

David R. Dow spoke to the federal judicial law clerks and interns in Houston on August 5 on opportunities in the area of public interest law. On August 10, he addressed overachieving high school students at the civil courts jury assembly room on careers in law. His Book Killing Time will be published in the UK and Australia by Random House and in France by Flammarion.

Adam Gershowitz’s article “Statewide Capital Punishment: The Case for Eliminating Counties’ Role in the Death Penalty” was accepted for publication in the Vanderbilt Law Review.

Leslie Griffin’s 2009 Supplement to Law and Religion: Cases and Materials was published at the end of July. Her review essay “Religion and Politics 2008-2009” appeared in the Journal of Law and Religion. She lectured about the Supreme Court’s term at the Praeclarus Breakfast Club and the Harris County Democratic Party meeting.

Dean Nimmer has a 2009 update of Information Law, a 2009 edition of Modern Licensing Law, a 4^th edition of The Law of Computer Technology (2009, four volumes), a 2009 update of The Law of Commercial Transactions and a 2009 update of Drafting Effective Contracts. In addition, he published the article “Internationally Interactive Law: Perspectives on Trans-Border Data Control from the U.S.” to be included in the book Challenges of Privacy and Data Protection Law, (Bruylant 2008) by Maria Veronica Perez Asinari and Pablo Palazzi. Dean Nimmer was also voted as among the best lawyers in the U.S. in information law and in intellectual property law.

Tom Oldham spoke on a Southeastern Association of Law Schools panel relating to international developments in family law.

Michael Olivas debated Roger Clegg on the legal dimensions of law school accreditation and the federal role in recognizing colleges at the Southwestern Association of Laws Schools conference in August.

Ben Sheppard was chair of two working groups that promulgated the “CPR Protocol on Disclosure of Documents and Presentation of Witnesses in Commercial Arbitration” recently published by the CPR International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution based in New York. The Protocol offers various options or “modes” for consideration by arbitrators and parties in organizing either a domestic or an international arbitration. The provisions dealing with documents provide a range of disclosure, from minimal to extensive, and include a separate regime for the disclosure of electronic information. The provisions dealing with the presentation of witnesses address the testimony of witnesses in written (witness statements) or in oral form, the use of depositions, presentations by party-appointed experts, and procedures for the evidentiary hearing. The Protocol is the most detailed set of arbitral procedures promulgated by any American arbitral institute. Prof. Sheppard made a presentation at the meeting of the Academic Council of the Institution for Transnational Arbitration conducted at the University of California in Berkeley in which he demonstrated the use of a hypothetical mock scenario for students to participate through role-playing in various phases of an international commercial arbitration. He also demonstrated the use of related DVDs and videotapes depicting the major phases of an arbitration. He spoke at the Spring meeting of the ABA International Law Section in Washington, D.C. in a program titled “What’s Up in International Litigation and Arbitration – What’s Going on Now and Why Oral Advocacy is More Important Than You Think.” Finally, Prof. Sheppard participated in a roundtable discussion of international arbitral issues at the European User’s Council Symposium, sponsored by the London Court of International Arbitration at Tylney Hall in Hampshire, England.

Sandra Guerra Thompson gave a talk on eyewitness identification at the Southeastern Association of Laws Schools in Florida on August 3.

Jacqueline Weaver gave a speech to about thirty Foreign Service officers who were touring Houston to learn more about the petroleum equipment suppliers and their markets on July 28 at the UH Hilton. On July 30, she was invited to speak on Uganda’s petroleum industry to the intelligence and security officers of oil companies in the Houston and Louisiana area, led by OSAC, the Overseas Security and Advisory Council of the U.S. Department of State. The meeting was hosted in the ExxonMobil building downtown. She spoke on “Managing Expectations in an Emerging Democracy.” The topics of the speech were corruption, the lack of a professional media, the lack of expertise in the Parliament, and the failure of the government to support cost recovery for social and environmental projects. The speech included incredible photos of Uganda’s national park, taken last spring break on a State Department speaker’s bureau mission to Uganda, which now hosts oil wells in its midst.