Faculty Focus is a monthly publication documenting the activities,
accomplishments, and honors of the University of Houston Law Center
Faculty.
January
2015
Editor, Katy
Stein Badeaux, kastein@central.uh.edu
Previous editions of
Faculty Focus can be accessed here.
Aaron Bruhl presented a paper on statutory interpretation
at Duke Law School.
Jim Hawkins was elected as the Chair of the Commercial & Related
Consumer Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools. On January 29,
he will present his research on title lending at the University of Texas School
of Law as part of the Financial Methods for Lawyers class.
A
redacted version of Tracy Hester’s forthcoming article, Restating
Environmental Law, was published by The Environmental Forum as the lead article for its January/February
2015 issue. The full version of the article will appear in The Columbia Journal of Environmental Law’s Spring
2015 issue. Professor Hester was also named as a resident scholar at the
Environmental Law Institute for 2015, and will work at ELI’s Washington,
D.C. office during the summer on his research projects involving the
governance of climate engineering and on the application of U.S. and foreign
environmental criminal laws to disasters.
Geoffrey
Hoffman travelled
back to Karnes Detention Center to prepare a client for an asylum trial with
two students and staff. He also represented the client with the students the
next day before the Immigration Court in San Antonio. Along with Supervising
Fellow Veronica Bernal, Professor Hoffman taped the show Latina
Voices hosted by Sofia Adrogue and Minerva Perez, where they discussed the
work of the UHLC immigration clinic. Future air date to be determined soon. In
addition, Professor Hoffman’s law review article on Immigration Regulation
co-authored with Professor Susham Modi will be cited in an upcoming
article in the N.Y.U. Law Review, Unshackling
Habeas Review (forthcoming 2015).
Craig Joyce was reappointed to
the Editorial Board of the Supreme Court of the United States-sponsored Journal of Supreme Court History and
began his 28th consecutive year of service on the board. The
proceedings of the 2014 Institute for Intellectual Property & Information
Law’s National Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, ReCalibrating Copyright:
Continuity, Contemporary Culture, and Change, organized and moderated with
an Introduction by Professor Joyce, was published as Issue 52:2 of Houston Law Review.
Sapna Kumar was invited to give
a talk at National University of Singapore's Law School--Asia's premier law
school. In her talk "Myriad and the Future of Genetic
Testing," she discussed the status of gene patents after the Federal Circuit's
December 2014 decision and talked about the implications of the decision for
Asian biotechnology companies.
Rick McElvaney was an Honorary
Speaker at the swearing in ceremony of Judge Laryssa Korduba as Justice of the
Peace, Precinct 4, Harris County, Texas. Professor McElvaney also spoke to the
Ismaili Professionals Network Southwest on Consumer Protection & Landlord
and Tenant law at The Ismaili Jamatkhana and Center in Sugarland, Texas. He was
also recently interviewed by Telemundo television for two segments to air on
Telemundo47 on consumer rights.
Michael A. Olivas was a busy boy during the 2015
AALS Annual Meeting, when he gave a Keynote to the Librarians’ Workshop, on the
Joys of Scholarship and Research Libraries, a talk on the 50th anniversary
of the Higher Education Act to the Section on Education Law, and chaired the
Law and Film Series, which showed Judgment at Nuremburg, Hot Coffee,
and Anita; he also moderated a panel on the documentary film, Anita,
which included Professor Anita Hill as a participant. He also represented
member schools in a tribute to departing AALS Managing Director Jane
LaBarbera. He was involved in briefing reporters on several news stories,
including President Obama’s new executive actions on immigration, campus sexual
assault policies, and other immigration and higher education law topics.
Jordan Paust’s article Can You Hear Me Now?: Private
Communication, National Security, and the Human Rights Disconnect was
published in 15 Chicago Journal of International Law 612-651 (2015), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2451534.
D. Theodore Rave spoke on a panel about voting
rights and the problem of electoral gerrymandering on January 16 at the Louisiana Law Review’s Voting Rights
Symposium at the LSU Law Center in Baton Rouge. Professor Rave discussed the
Arizona legislature’s constitutional challenge to the Independent Redistricting
Commission that the voters of Arizona empowered to draw congressional district lines,
which is currently pending in the Supreme Court.
Jessica L. Roberts presented The New
Disability Discrimination at the 2015 AALS Annual Meeting during the
Joint Program for the Sections on Disability Law and Employment Discrimination
Law. Professor Roberts’ panel also featured Senator Tom Harkin and EEOC
Commissioner Chai Feldblum. She also accepted a position as the Secretary-elect
for the AALS Disability Law Section.
Susan Sakmar returns to UHLC this Spring to teach Shale
Gas & LNG. Her book, Energy for the 21st Century: Opportunities and Challenges for LNG(2013) was recently
chosen an Outstanding Academic Title for 2014 by Choice Magazine. Choice is widely read by academic librarians in the U.S. and the awards are chosen
based on the best-reviewed titles during 2014. Her book will also be part of an
exhibit of all the Outstanding Academic Title winners at the American Library
Association’s Mid-winter Conference later this month. Professor Sakmar’s
article, LNG Exports: Will the United States Become the World's Largest LNG
Exporter? was published in the recent edition of the State Bar of Texas
Oil, Gas & Energy Resources Section Report.
Spencer Simons organized, presided over, and presented at
the day-long Workshop for Newer Law Library Directors on January 5 in
Washington D.C. The workshop was the annual program of the AALS Committee on
Libraries and Technology, of which Professor Simons served as Chair in 2013. He
also has prepared his portion of the 2nd edition of the co-authored Federal Legal Resaearch text,
scheduled for publication by Carolina Academic Press this summer. On campus,
Professor Simons is serving as the Chair of the Search Committee for Executive
Director of the Center for Faculty Engagement and Development (FED). He also
has accepted an appointment as member of the Advisory Board of the FED.
Ronald Turner’s recent publications include A
Critique of Justice Antonin Scalia’s Originalist Defense of Brown v. Board
of Education, 62 UCLA Law Review Discourse170 (2014), and Same-Sex Marriage and Due Process
Traditionalism, 49 University of Richmond Law Review 579 (2015). His essay Same-Sex Marriage and Loving
v. Virginia: Analogy or Disanalogy? will be published by the Washington & Lee Law Review Online. He
also participated in a panel discussion of several constitutional issues
decided in recent federal appeals court decisions at the January 2015 meeting
of the Garland Walker Inn of Court.
Greg Vetter attended the Association of American Law
Schools Annual Meeting in January 2015 in Washington, D.C. as a member of the
Executive Board of the Intellectual Property Law section. The Board put on
two panels, and additionally the UH Law Center’s Institute for Intellectual
Property and Information Law (IPIL) sponsored a reception held by the IP
section for IP professors attending the meeting.
Jacqueline Weaver was the Course Director and a
lecturer for a 5-day Advanced Legal Studies Program on specialized topics in
oil and gas law presented to lawyers from Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras)
at the University of Houston Law Center; Houston, Texas from December 8 to
12. Before that, she moderated a panel on Offshore Exploration &
Production: Challenges & Opportunities Panel at the 2nd Mexico
Oil & Gas Investment Summit; a conference organized by PetroRock Energy
LLC; Mexico City, Mexico; December 4, 2014. This conference followed her
lecture on “Offshore Safety in the Gulf of Mexico, the New U.S. System,” that
was part of a 4-week training program entitled
“Regulation of Hydrocarbons: An Advanced Training Program for Professionals,”
organized by the University of Houston Law Center, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo
de México (ITAM) – Centro de Energía y Recursos Naturales, and Wood Mackenzie;
Mexico City, Mexico; December 3, 2014.
Kellen Zale presented her work-in-progress, Sharing
Property, at the Section on Property Law Breakfast on January 4, 2015, at
the Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.