Albertus Accolades

February 2016

Editor, Katy Stein Badeaux • Access previous editions of Albertus Accolades here.

Albertus Accolades is a monthly publication documenting the activities, accomplishments, and honors of
the University of Houston Law Center faculty and staff.

Leonard Baynes gave a welcoming speech and hosted the Alumni and Friends Reception at the Apollo Theater in New York City on January 6. On January 14, Dean Baynes served as a judge at the 20th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Oratory Competition and Celebration on January 15 at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church of Christ. Dean Baynes spoke at and attended an Alumni and Friends Reception in the Rio Grande Valley on January 20 at Edwards Abstract and Title Company in Edinburg, TX. On January 22, Dean Baynes gave welcome at lunch at the Criminal Justice Reform Symposium – “Police, Jails, and Vulnerable People” at the University Student Center. Dean Baynes and Professor Janet Heppard had a meeting with the Coalition for the Homeless in Houston on January 25. Dean Baynes attended the Cougar Chairs Leadership Academy Graduation Ceremony at the Elizabeth D. Rockwell Pavilion on January 26, where Associate Dean Marcilynn Burke and Professor Darren Bush graduated. On January 27, Dean Baynes introduced, and the Law Center hosted the first Sondock Jurist-In-Residence Speaker, Chief Judge Robert Katzmann at the Law Center. On January 29, Dean Baynes hosted and spoke at a reception at the Law Center in honor of Dean’s Office Secretary Luddie Collins. Luddie retired from the Law Center after 38 years of service.

Janet Beck, alongside Amy Hawk, our Blakely Advocacy Associate Director, coached two Client Counseling Regional Competition teams; one won second place (Melissa MacNeil and Michelle Curtis) and the other (Neeharika Tumati and Aida Ahmadi) lost the opportunity to advance, after 3 rounds, in a heartbreaking tiebreaker. Meredith Duncan and Yvonne Taylor provided information on ethical and criminal procedure issues that helped the students in their quest for the championship. Rick McElvaney, Erma Bonadero and Cassandra Jeu, as well as Blakely Director Jim Lawrence, played clients which helped the students sharpen their skills.

Emily Berman moderated the Andrews Kurth National Moot Court Championship Symposium, discussing counterterrorism issues with former CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, Asst. U.S. Attorney Al Hamdani, and defense attorney Josh Dratel. She also served as a judge in the Moot Court’s quarterfinal round.

Barbara Evans visited the White House on February 25 to participate in the President’s Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) Summit. She also will attend a meeting of the Planning Board of FDA’s National Medical Device Evaluation System while in Washington. She has received notice of an 18-month extension of her NIH-funded Clinical Sequencing in Cancer project. She submitted a proposal on sustainable information commons for neurotechnology research and regulatory science, to be presented at the UH Cullen College of Engineering’s BRAIN Industry/University Collaborative Research Center (I/UCRC) NSF planning grant meeting in Tempe in early March. She attended a February 11-12 meeting of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Accessible and Affordable Hearing Health Care for Adults, which is nearing completion of its year-long study. She has been nominated for a National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study of future biotechnology products and ways to enhance the federal regulatory framework to manage novel risks they may pose. She participated via conference call in a two-day meeting the National Committee for Vital and Health Statistics on February 17-18.  She served on the examining committee for a Ph.D. candidate in public health genetics at University of Washington on February 23. 

Dave Fagundes’ article,The Social Norms of Waiting in Line, was accepted for publication after peer review by Law & Social Inquiry. His draft article,Property, Acquisition, and Happiness, was selected as a winner of the 2016 Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) Call for Papers. He will present the paper at the Call for Papers Luncheon at the SEALS conference in Amelia Island this August. Dave also published a short essay,The Tragedy of the Neutral Ground: Public Property and Social Norms During Mardi Gras, in the Tulane Law Review Online, available here.

Geoffrey Hoffman was interviewed by KUHF regarding two Texas immigrant detention centers that are applying for licenses as family residential centers. Professor Hoffman spoke on the Supreme Court’s recent grant of certiorari in the U. S. v. Texas case among other hot topics in immigration law at a training hosted by Neighborhood Centers, Inc. (NCI). Also speaking on relief for immigrants was Josephine Sorgwe, a clinical supervising fellow working in the immigration clinic. Professor Hoffman spoke on a panel of experts (including Mary Kramer, Thomas Ragland and Sui Chung) in San Antonio,Texas at a conference of the American Immigration Lawyers Association on the topic terror-related inadmissibility grounds. Additionally, Professor Hoffman wrote a blog entry for the Immprof Law Professors’ Blog on the grant of three interlocutory appeals by the BIA concerning denial of law student appearances. See the blog entry here.

Craig Joyce announced that the 48th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History will be held in Houston in the fall of 2018. Joyce will chair the Local Arrangements Committee, partnering with Professor Stephen Zamora and faculty from throughout the University. The conference theme will be “Houston: Gateway to las Américas.”

Jim Lawrence participated in the International Chamber of Commerce’s 2016 Mediation Week, which consists of two major international events: the ICC International Round Table and the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition. Jim was the U.S. representative on the Working Group for the 3rd ICC International Mediation Round Table. The Round Table featured over 100 mediation professionals from around the world, participating in a workshop-type conference. Jim presented the Closing Remarks on behalf of the Working Group. Following the Round Table, Jim was on the 3-member Training Team that presented two one-hour workshop sessions to all 66 teams of law students competing in the 11th ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition. The 66 law student teams represented over 30 countries, 80+ nationalities, and 6 continents. Jim also served as a judge for the competition, judging in the preliminary rounds and in the quarterfinals.

Jessica Mantel presented her article Tackling the Social Determinants of Health: A Central Role for Providers at Case Western Reserve Law School as part of their junior faculty scholars speakers series.  She enjoyed the 3 inches of fresh snow they got in Cleveland . . .  until she had to drag her suitcase through the slush while wearing heels.

On February 11, Douglas Moll spoke at the 2016 Conference on Securities and Business Law in Dallas, Texas. His topic was “Fiduciary Duties in Corporations.”  He served on a panel with Professor Elizabeth Miller of Baylor University Law School and Professor Douglas Rudley of SMU Law School. Professor Moll also completed the statutory supplement for his newly published casebook on The Law of Business Torts and Unfair Competition.

Michael A. Olivas taught an inter-term course on Music Law at Cornell University Law School in January, 2016. He reports he survived the cold weather and snowstorms en route back to Houston.

Laura Oren and Ellen Marrus announce the publication of a book by Irene Merker Rosenberg and Yale L. Rosenberg. Comparative American and Talmudic Criminal Law, the new title from the late Professors Rosenberg, has been electronically published this month by the Law Center. The newly-published work is available here, and also through SSRN here. The work includes previously unpublished material by Irene Merker Rosenberg on how to read Jewish law and on the functioning of rabbinic courts which explain and integrate the co-authored work compiled in the chapters that follow. Oren and Marrus also announce that NAACP President Cornell William Brooks will deliver the 2016 Yale L. Rosenberg Memorial Lecture, Born Suspect: Tragedies of Racial Profiling, on March 3 at 6pm in Krost Hall, with a reception to follow. It is nice to think that in 2016 the spirit and work of Irene and Yale live on in these two events.

In February, Jessica L. Roberts published her article with Nicole Huberfeld, Health Care and the Myth of Self-Reliance, in the Boston College Law Review. That paper is available here. She also published her solo-authored paper, Rethinking Employment Discrimination Harms, in the Indiana Law Journal. That paper is available here. Nicole and Jessica wrote an entry, called Decoupling Myths About Employment and Health Insurances, on the Health Affairs Blog, available here. Finally, she and her co-authors, Glenn Cohen, Chris Deubert, and Holly Lynch, accepted an offer to publish their paper Evaluating NFL Player Health & Performance: Legal & Ethical Issues with the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, forthcoming in early 2017.

Bret Wells made a presentation entitled "Current Topics in U.S. International Taxation" to the Tax Section of the Houston Bar Association on February 17, 2016.

Allison Winnike was recently awarded two grants from the Texas Department of State Health Services. She is the Principal Investigator for the Tobacco Secondhand Smoke Ordinance Surveillance project ($228,000 award for two years) and the Principal Investigator for the Control Measures and Public Health Emergencies: A Texas Bench Book project ($93,343 for eight months). She has given a series of lectures on “Public Health Law & Ethics and Implications for Local Health Authorities” as part of the Texas Department of State Health Services’ High Consequences Infectious Disease Response Workshops in McAllen (December 9), New Braunfels (January 21), Houston (February 3), and Austin (February 16). She will speak on “Health Preparedness: Lessons learned from Deep-water Horizon Accident” at the Symposium on Improving Cooperation for a Sustainable Gulf of Mexico After the 2014 Mexican Energy Reforms in Galveston on February 26. She has been named to the Texas OneGulf Network of Experts (TONE), recognized for having expertise on challenges to the environmental and economic sustainability of the Gulf of Mexico and its impact on the health and well-being of Texans and the nation. She has also been named to the Texas OneGulf Disaster Research Response Program (DR2) Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI) Workgroup. In addition, she has been named to the American Public Health Association Law Section Policy Committee.

Kellen Zale published a guest post on the Environmental Law Prof Blog discussing how the NFL avoided a major environmental law for its new stadium in Los Angeles, available here. Professor Zale was elected to a position on the Executive Committee of the AALS Section on State & Local Government Law.