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

February 2010

Aaron Bruhl presented a paper at the Quinnipiac-Yale Dispute Resolution Workshop. The paper, titled "Deciding When To Decide: How Appellate Procedure Distributes the Costs of Legal Change," can be downloaded at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1552629. Also, for the month of February, Prof. Bruhl is guest-blogging on PrawfsBlawg, www.prawfs.com.

David R. Dow's most recent book, The Autobiography of an Execution, was published by Twelve. In connection with the book's release, he was interviewed by Texas Monthly; the interview is available at http://www.texasmonthly.com/2010-02-01/bookreviews.php. Prof. Dow's blog post, dealing with the reasons he wrote the book, appeared on the Huffington Post; you can read it at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-r-dow/the-autobiography-of-an-e_b_433607.html. GQ used the book to initiate a new online feature, called "Twenty Pages." They actually published the first twenty-one pages of the book, as well as an interview of Prof. Dow. All of it is available at http://www.gq.com/blogs/the-q/2010/01/the-great-defender.html. On February 3d, Prof. Dow discussed his book on the Leonard Lopate show on WNYC (available at http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2010/02/03/segments/149444) as well as Democracy Now, with Amy Goodman. On February 8th, he appeared on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. He also conducted around twenty briefer radio interviews with local and national hosts on February 4th and 5th.

In an unrelated cyberspace post, Dow analyzed the ALI's decision to abandon the death penalty in his post on the Beacon Broadside. Titled "Legal Group Abandons Death Penalty, But Will it Bring 'Tectonic' Change to Texas?", it is available at http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2010/01/david-r-dow-death-penalty.html.

Meredith J. Duncan presented her most recent work-in-progress "'Gray' Rape and Restorative Justice: An Effort Toward Rehabilitation of Acquaintance Rape Offenders and Empowerment of Its Victims" at the University of Virginia Law School's Mid-Atlantic People of Color Conference in Charlottesville, Virginia on January 29th. Her ethics opinion for Prof. David Dow's The Autobiography of an Execution was published as an appendix to his terrific memoir in February 2010.  She was also appointed to the Executive Committee of the Criminal Justice Section of the AALS at the annual AALS meeting in New Orleans in January, and she accepted SMU Law Review’s invitation to author a piece on recent Texas tort law developments for its annual survey issue.  Finally, she accepted an invitation from Bryan A. Garner, the editor-in-chief of Black’s Law Dictionary, to serve on the panel of academic contributors to the next edition of Black’s.

Geoffrey Hoffman met with the staff and director of Catholic Charities, at the agency’s Cabrini Center, as well as with the director of the YMCA Immigration Legal Services, to discuss ways that the UH Immigration Clinic and those organizations can work together as a coalition to better serve the immigrant community.

Craig Joyce was reappointed to the ABA’s Copyright Reform Task Force.

Douglas Moll and Jon Macey (Yale) have submitted their chapters for the 11th edition of Jonathan Macey and Douglas Moll, Corporations Including Partnerships and LLCs (West 2010). Professor Moll is responsible for all of the unincorporated material (agency, general partnerships, limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships, and limited liability companies). He now turns his attention to a teacher’s manual and statutory supplement which are due in April. Prof. Moll has also accepted two invitations to present papers in upcoming months. First, in February, he will present a paper at BYU Law School at a Law & Entrepreneurship scholarship retreat (hosted by Professor Gordon Smith). Moll has also accepted an invitation to present a paper at Western New England College School of Law in the fall on “Fiduciary Duties in the Closely Held Corporation 35 Years after Wilkes v. Springside Nursing Home.”  The participants at that conference include Moll, Deborah DeMott, Larry Ribstein, Robert Thompson, Mark Lowenstein, Lyman Johnson, Dan Kleinberger, and Ben Means. Professors Moll and Robert Ragazzo are also working on the first supplement to their Aspen Publishers treatise The Law of Closely Held Corporations, which is due at the end of March. Professor Moll will also be serving as an Executive Committee member of the Agency and Unincorporated Associations AALS Section, as well as the New Law Professors AALS Section, over the next year.

Thomas Newhouse and Tasha Willis presented on “Conflict Management Systems and Communication Techniques” at the Vera  Institute of Justice Annual Conference at Hyatt Regency downtown on February 3rd.

Michael A. Olivas published a review of Catherine Dauvergne, Making People Illegal: What Globalization Means for Migration and Law, 29 Journal of American Ethnic History 94 (2010). He also delivered the keynote address at a Wayne State Law School conference on immigration reform, and in connection with the conference, appeared on a radio show with the NPR Detroit affiliate. The lecture will be published in the Wayne Law Review as “The Political Economy of the DREAM Act and the Legislative Process: A Case Study of Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” On the same trip, he gave a talk on the Hernandez case at John Marshall School of Law in Chicago, where the JMSL also hosted a showing of A CLASS APART, the 2009 PBS film on the case.

Bruce Patsner had an article accepted for publication in the April issue of Health & Life Sciences Law. The title of the article is “Marketing Approval versus Cost of New Medical Technologies in the Era of Comparative Effectiveness: CMS, not FDA, Will Be the Primary Player.”

Jordan Paust was a panelist at the Conference on Torture in and by the United States, January 29th at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Prof. Paust was also one of three judges during the Final Round of the Regional Jessup International Law Moot Court competition hosted by the University of Houston Law Center on February 14th.

Ira B. Shepard spoke to the Pro Bono Committee of the ABA Tax Section at its Mid-winter Meeting in San Antonio on “The Ethics of Limited Representation” in January. He spoke on the same topic in January to the Wednesday Tax Forum in Houston. During the same month, he spoke on “Recent Developments in Federal Income Taxation” at a Tax Section Program during its Mid-winter Meeting, as well as speaking on the same topic to the Wednesday Tax Forum and to a group of senior tax personnel of the UHY CPA firm. During January, he sent off for publication in the Florida Tax Review the article on “Recent Developments in Federal Income Taxation: The Year 2009” which he co-authors with Marty McMahon (Florida) and Dan Simmons (UC Davis).

Sandra Guerra Thompson, together with four of her students, attended the meeting of the Timothy Cole Wrongful Convictions Advisory Panel in Fort Worth on January 28th. Prof. Thompson is the representative for the Texas public law schools on this advisory panel which reports to the Texas legislature.