Faculty
Focus is a monthly publication documenting the activities, accomplishments, and
honors of the University of Houston Law Center Faculty.
Editor, Katy Stein Badeaux, kastein@central.uh.edu
Previous editions of Faculty Focus can be accessed here.
May 2013
Zachary Bray gave a talk at the University of Minnesota
School of Law on April 27, as part of the Association for Law, Property, and
Society’s annual meeting, on a work-in-progress, The Edges of Development:
Progressive Property Theory and the Present and Future of Colonias.
On April 19, he gave a talk at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas
Southern University on his forthcoming article in the Maryland Law Review, The Hidden Rise of Efficient
Extinction.
Aaron Bruhl presented a paper on judicial deference to
administrative agencies at the University of Wisconsin Law School in
April. He also made several media appearances commenting on the same-sex
marriage cases currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Seth Chandler testified before the Texas Legislature
Insurance Committee on April 16, 2013 primarily to address H.B. 2352 and again
on April 30, 2013, to address H.B. 3622 both of which involve attempts to
reform catastrophe insurance in Texas for tropical cyclones. He appeared on Fox
26 Houston on April 25, 2013, to discuss the inadequate resources of the Texas
Windstorm Insurance Association, which insures 62% of coastal property against
wind, to pay claims should a significant tropical cyclone occur this summer. He
published during April ten blog entries to his blog catrisk.net, which also addresses proposed
reforms of windstorm insurance in Texas, several of which involved mathematical
modeling of proposed systems. The blog had over 1,200 views during April. In
addition, Professor Chandler started a new blog, mathlaw.org,
that explores legal and economic issues with Mathematica. His initial entries
have examined Effective Marginal Tax Rates under the Affordable Care Act,
Iterated Games, President Obama' s Proposal to Limit Tax Preferred Retirement
Contributions, The Bad Math in 42 U.S.C. sec. 18062, Visualizing Hierarchical
Condition Codes under the Risk Adjustment Provisions of the Affordable Care
Act, and a Picture of Adverse Selection Derived From the Federal Register. His
talk at Harvard Law School on “Marginal Tax Rates under the Affordable Care
Act” was canceled as a result of the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing
suspects, but would have been very good. He and Professor Michael Olivas
will co-chair the Law Center’s Strategic Planning Committee.
Barbara Evans has been invited to serve on the Institute
of Medicine's Committee on Ethics Principles and Guidelines for Health
Standards for Long Duration and Exploration Spaceflights, which will convene
in Washington on May 30-31 to begin a study described at http://www.iom.edu/Activities/Research/HealthStandardsSpaceflights.aspx. The
next-generation sequencing industry policy analysis working group invited
Professor Evans to attend its May 15 meeting to discuss her
work-in-progress on whether bundling of genetic testing with genetic test
interpretation amounts to an illegal tying arrangement that forces
patients and physicians to continue using brand-name genetic tests
after patent expiration in order to gain access
to proprietary databases of genetic variants of unknown significance
(VUS), which are crucial in interpreting the medical
significance of genetic test results. She addressed the Greenwall Foundation's
Annual Meeting on May 1 and the Petrie-Flom Annual Conference at Harvard
Law School on May 3. She participated in a May 10 joint conference of the
MiniSentinel privacy, data, and clinical trials working groups. She will
address the NIH Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research consortium on May
21-23.
Jim Hawkins' latest article was selected for the 14th
Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum. The Forum meets annually,
alternating between public law and private law subjects, and senior scholars comment
on the papers. The paper was 1 of 18 selected from almost 200 submissions
based on a blind review process by a jury of senior
scholars. Professor Hawkins will present the paper at Yale Law
School on June 15th.
Geoffrey Hoffman will co-author a book chapter in
the following upcoming publication: A. R. Ackerman and R. Furman, Editors, The Criminalization of Immigration: Contexts and Consequences. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
Robert B. Johnson was re-elected to the Board of
Directors for the Commercial & Consumer Law Section of the Houston Bar
Association. This will be his sixth consecutive term.
Craig Joyce submitted the manuscript of Enduringly
Great: The Fifth Decade of Houston Law Review, the last in his series of decade-by-decade historical
essays on HLR’s first 50
years. The five episodes of the saga, intended to be a “short history” of
HLR, total 195 pages.
Jacqueline Lipton presented "Determining the
Public Interest and the Generic Nature of Domain Names: ICANN as Lawmaking
Authority" at the 2nd Annual International IP scholars' roundtable, at the
University of San Diego, CA, April 20, 2013 (with co-author Professor Mary
Wong).
Gerry Moohr attended a remarkable conference, American Exceptionalism in Crime & Punishment, at the University of Minnesota Law School’s Robina Institute. Participants spoke about how and why punishment in the U.S. varies so markedly from other countries. She is working on a casebook with Ron Turner and co-authors, aiming to meet a late summer deadline. Gerry will be speaking at two sessions at the summer SEALS conference; one of the presentations is to be published in the Ohio State Criminal Law Journal.
Michael A. Olivas’ most recent book projects were
published in May, 2013— Suing Alma Mater: Higher Education and the Courts (Johns Hopkins University
Press) and In Defense of My People: Alonso S. Perales and the Development of Mexican-American Public Inellectuals (Arte Publico Press). He
was interviewed on NPR about the projects by KUHF’s Eric Ladau: http://www.classical917.org/houston_public_radio-arte_publico.php.
In San Francisco, he delivered the Opening Plenary Invitational Lecture at the
annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association; over 12,000
persons attended the annual meeting. At the AERA meeting, he also appeared on a
panel with Plyler v. Doe lawyer Peter Roos to discuss the 30+ years of
the case, and served as a respondent for two sessions on higher education law
and finance issues.
Jessica L. Roberts will present at the University
of Virginia Law School's Third Annual Conference on Genetics, Ethics, & the
Law on May 22, 2013. Additionally, the Minnesota Law Review recently published her article Health Law as Disability
Rights Law.
Susan Sakmar gave four presentations at LNG17, the
world’s largest global gas event, which was held in Houston on April 16-19,
2013. Professor Sakmar’s presentation, “Energy for the 21st Century:
Opportunities and Challenges for LNG,” highlighted the key role LNG is expected
to play in the world’s future energy supply mix as policy leaders search for
more sustainable fuels to meet growing energy demand. Professor Sakmar also
addressed the prospects of U.S. LNG exports, which gives rise to numerous
regulatory and policy issues and is a development she is closely following.
Professor Sakmar arranged for all of her students in her Shale Gas & LNG
course to volunteer at LNG17 in order to attend the numerous expert sessions
and network with energy lawyers and other professionals in the growing global
gas world. Professor Sakmar’s participation in LNG17 was announced in the
following press releases:
University of Houston Press Release Link: http://www.law.uh.edu/news/spring2013/0410Sakmar.asp
PRNewswire: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases-test/uh-law-center-professor-to-address-global-gas-conference-202406231.html.
Ben Sheppard moderated and spoke at a panel dealing with
“Latin America—Enforcement of Awards” at the Houston Conference on
International Arbitration on April 11, 2013 sponsored by the International
Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (Paris). In his
capacity as a Member of the Consultative Group for the Restatement of the Law Third, The U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration, Professor Sheppard participated in the meeting
of The American Law Institute in Philadelphia on April 13, 2012 to comment on
Preliminary Draft 6 of the Restatement. Also, Professor Sheppard has been
appointed to serve on the core drafting group for the International Council for
Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) to prepare the “ICCA Protocols for Fair and
Efficient Arbitration” to provide uniform protocols for with many of the common
logistical aspects of international arbitration proceedings. Additionally,
Professor Sheppard addressed the 7th Annual Energy, Mining and
Resources Arbitration Conference sponsored by the Western Canada Commercial
Arbitration Society in Calgary, Alberta on May 14, 2013 on the topics of
the “Who Decides Arbitrability” and “Manifest Disregard of the Law” as applied
to arbitration proceedings conducted in the United States.
Spencer Simons served on an AALS site visit team in early
April, visiting a law school in a clime cooler than Houston.
Sandra Guerra Thompson participated in meetings of the
Board of Directors of the Houston Forensic Science LGC which is currently
conducting a national search for an Executive Director of the new forensic
science lab.
Jacqueline Weaver spoke on “Recent Developments in
Confronting the Resource Curse: Lessons for Sustainable Development” at the
Washington, D.C. Chapter of the Association of International Petroleum
Negotiators (AIPN) on April 18, 2013.
Kellen Zale presented her article, Changing the Plan:
The Challenge of Applying Environmental Review to Land Use Initiatives, at
the Association for Law, Property and Society Conference at the University of
Minnesota Law School on April 27, 2013. The article has been accepted for
publication by Ecology Law Quarterly (Berkeley).
Stephen Zamora gave a lecture at the Houston Las
Americas Hotel in downtown Houston on April 25 as part of the Law Center’s
Legal Excellence series, co-sponsored by the Law Center and the Greater Houston
Partnership. His lecture was on the benefits and challenges of economic
integration between the United States and Mexico, as a consequence of
NAFTA. There is more information here:
http://www.law.uh.edu/news/spring2013/0429Zamora.asp.
On April 27, the Law Library presented the CLE program
"Essential Legal Information & Technology for Texas Lawyers" at
the Law Center. Spencer Simons talked about Texas bill tracking,
legislative history, and administrative agency research. Mon Yin Lung
discussed free online resources for lawyers. Chris Dykes and Emily
Lawson's presentation introduced attendees to special mobile device
applications for lawyers. The free program, approved for three hours of CLE
credit, was targeted at recent graduates and solo and small firm practitioners.