Faculty Focus is a monthly
publication documenting the activities, accomplishments, and honors of the
January 2010
Editor, Dan Baker djbaker2@central.uh.edu
Previous editions of Faculty Focus can be accessed here.
Darren Bush
has been busy the past few months. On January 9, he presented at the American
Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting in New Orleans for the Antitrust
and Economic Regulation section. The title of his talk was “Too Big to Bail:
Antitrust as Applied to Failing and Flailing Industries.” The papers presented
on that panel are slated for publication in the Antitrust
Law Journal. In early January, he also submitted comments to the Senate
Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer
Rights related to rail carrier legislation. In November, he presented on a
panel at the Federal Trade Commission Federal-State Workshop on Competition and
Energy regarding antitrust immunities and exemptions in the electricity
industry. His book chapter, “Why ERCOT Only Has One Regulator,” is now published
in The Prospect of Electricity Restructuring:
The Texas Model (Andrew Kleit and Lynne Kiesling eds., 2009). He was also
the signatory of the Amicus Brief of Antitrust Law and Economics Professors
in Support of Settlement, Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc., Case No. 05
CV 8136-JES (SDNY). In addition, he has given numerous talks in Houston regarding
compliance with the antitrust laws in the energy industry. He also served
on the Faculty Appointments Committee, which according to previous faculty
focus postings took “nearly one million hours.”
Seth Chandler
has published five new Demonstrations: (1) Individual Insurance Decisions
Under HR350 and HR3962; (2) Premium Assistance Calculator for HR3590 and HR3962;
(3) Retiree Stop Loss Insurance; (4) A Theory of Insurance Lapses; and (5)
Approximating a Judge. His article, “Long Term Care Insurance: The Next Frontier,”
has been submitted to the Annals of
Health Law for publication in its spring 2010 issue. The American Association
of Law Schools has included Professor Chandler in its list of honorees for
work done during Hurricane Katrina.
Leslie Griffin
testified before the Wisconsin Senate on Jan. 12, defending the constitutionality
of SB139, which revives civil sexual abuse lawsuits previously barred by the
statute of limitations for a three-year period.
Julie Hill
presented her paper “Bailouts and Credit Cycles: Fannie, Freddie, and the
Farm Credit System” before the Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial
Services section at the AALS annual conference. A draft of the paper, which
will be published in the Wisconsin Law Review, may be downloaded
at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1524300.
Julie also participated in a panel discussion on legal scholarship sponsored
by the J. Reuben Clark Law Society.
Craig Joyce
attended the Association of American Law Schools’ Annual Meeting in New Orleans
and was reappointed to the LexisNexis Publishing Advisory Board. Joyce presented
to the board and to LexisNexis management the results of his survey of 650
LexisNexis authors regarding challenges and opportunities in the law school
marketplace presented by changes both in legal education itself and by new
media for the dissemination of information.
Tom Oldham
has been designated the issue editor for the spring 2011 issue of the ABA
Family Law Quarterly. The issue’s topics are new ideas in child support and
spousal support.
When the hoped-for floor fight did not
occur, and the call for the quorum motion failed, Michael A. Olivas was nominated to become
President-elect of the Association for American Law Schools, effective January
10, 2010. At the end of the 2011 Annual Meeting, he will become President
of the Association. While the nomination was unanimous, several onlookers
noted that the Mayan calendar predicts 2012 will be the end of the world.
Jordan Paust
has an essay on-line with the Harvard
International Law Journal Online that was requested in connection with
a forthcoming article by another author. The essay “The U.N. Is Bound By Human
Rights: Understanding the Full Reach of Human Rights, Remedies, and Nonimmunity”
is forthcoming at www.harvardilj.org/online. Professor Paust’s article
“Civil Liability of Bush, Cheney, et al. for Torture, Cruel, Inhumane, and
Degrading Treatment and Forced Disappearance” has been published at 42 Case Western Reserve Journal of International
Law 359-388 (2009), and is available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1458638.
Professor Paust will present the Richard B. Lillich Lecture on International
Law as Florida State University in March. A draft of a forthcoming article
for that event entitled “Self-Defense Targetings of Non-State Actors and Permissibility
of U.S. Use of Drones in Pakistan,” will be printed later in 19 Journal of Transnational Law and Policy
([No. 2] 2010), and is available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1520717.
Robert Schuwerk
was featured in the lead article in v. 25, no. 26 of the Lawyers'
Manual on Professional Conduct, commenting on the process by which pending
revisions to the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct were created,
and the process by which they will be placed before the members of the bar
for adoption.
Stephen
Zamora gave a lecture at the law
school of the Universidad Católica in Lima, Peru in November on the institutional
deficiencies in NAFTA and their effects on North American integration. He
also met at the Peruvian Central Bank with 6 University of Houston Law Center
alumni who received their LLMs with us, including the General Counsel of the
Central Bank, Manuel Monteagudo. Also, as a member of the Committee on Academic
Freedom and Tenure (CAFT) of the AALS, he co-authored a report to the CAFT
concerning allegations of the denial of academic freedom and tenure by a faculty
member of an AALS – accredited law school.