Albertus Accolades

April 2017

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.

Katy Badeaux spoke at the Houston Area Law Librarians’ Spring Seminar on Researching Securities Law on March 8. In April she attended the Southwestern Association of Law Libraries (SWALL) Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, NM, where she completed her three-year terms as Treasurer and Executive Board member. Katy also presented two programs at the conference: “The Internet of Things: Where's the Law?” and “Introduction to Securities Law Research.”

Leonard M. Baynes gave opening remarks at a reception to recognize top 1L academic achievement and introduced student speaker, Hannah Tucker, on March 7. He attended the Celebration of Life Service for Professor Ben Sheppard on March 8. Later, on March 21, Dean Baynes gave welcoming remarks at the Visiting Scholars Luncheon held in the Hendricks Heritage Room. On March 23, Dean Baynes moderated the Yale L. Rosenberg Memorial Lecture featuring a talk by Renee Knake, Professor of Law, The Joanne Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics entitled “What Does it Mean to Be the First? Lessons from Women Shortlisted for the U.S. Supreme Court” that highlights the struggles women faced as trailblazers in a profession dominated by men. Panelists included distinguished UHLC alumnae Judge Vanessa Gilmore of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Kay McCall, President & CEO, Noble Energy, Dianne Ralston, EVP & Chief Legal Officer, TechnipFMC, and Doris Rodriguez, Partner, Andrews Kurth Kenyon. The following evening, Dean Baynes gave opening remarks at the Admitted Students Scholarship Reception held at the Tasting Room on Uptown Park Boulevard and also provided remarks at the Black Law Students Association Spring Alumni Reception held at Café. Dean Baynes, along with Bruce Ruzinsky, Partner, Jamila Brinson, Associate, and Amos Davis, Operations Counsel for the Minute Maid Business Unit at the Coca-Cola Company, participated in a panel discussion about diversity in law schools and the legal profession on March 29 at the law firm of Jackson Walker. The Dean also attended the retirement celebration for Peggy Fortner and provided remarks about her years of service and dedication to the Law Center’s LL.M. program. On March 30, Dean Baynes gave welcoming remarks on behalf of UHLC and introduced Professor Bret Wells at the Houston Business & Tax Law Journal’s Annual Symposium which was held at Birraporetti’s.

Janet Beck was invited to serve on a Best Interest Determination panel, organized by the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, in order to assist the Young Center in providing a recommendation to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement. The issue was whether a very young child, now in foster care in the U.S., should be sent back to her mother in El Salvador. In making the recommendation, factors such as the child’s safety, the family situation in El Salvador as well as the foster care situation were all considered. She joined others on the panel as follows: a licensed social worker, a family law attorney (Barbara Stalder) and a social worker and case worker in El Salvador.

Emily Berman accepted a publication offer for her article, When Database Queries are Fourth Amendment Searches, from the Minnesota Law Review. She also presented the paper at the 2017 Michigan Young Scholars Conference. 

Darren Bush hasn’t submitted an Albertus update since September of last year. Since then, he has put the finishing touches on his article Out of the DOJ Ashes Rises the FTC Phoenix: Towards Singular Federal Antitrust Enforcement, available now at 53 Willamette L. Rev. 33 (2017). He presented this paper at the Loyola University Chicago Antitrust Colloquium in April. In March, he attended the ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting in Washington, DC. A week before, he competed in the Worldstar Martial Arts Competition. In February, as Director of EENR, he helped host the 1st annual North American Conference on Environment, Energy and Natural Resources. In December, he moderated a panel for the 2nd Annual Airline Roundtable for the American Antitrust Institute. The panel included the antitrust general counsel of several airlines, including Southwest and JetBlue. He is currently working on finishing up his Statutory Supplement update and working on an update to his casebook with Harry First of NYU and the late John J. Flynn. His next two articles with be symposia pieces for the Antitrust Bulletin, the first related to the Tunney Act and the second titled The Poverty of Antitrust Philosophy. On the Kung Fu side of the ledger, he is now working on learning a dagger form, which he promises not to practice at school.

Richard Dole’s recent article, The Contours of American Trade Secret Law: What Is and What Isn't Protectable as a Trade Secret (19 SMU Sci. & Tech. L. Rev. 89), has been selected for inclusion in the 2017 Intellectual Property Law Review. The annual anthology includes law review articles judged to be the best and most influential of the year. The same article was also recently listed on SSRN’s Top Ten download list for International Trade Regulation articles.

Chris Dykes spoke on Oil and Gas Law Research at the Southwestern Association of Law Libraries (SWALL) Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, NM on April 6. Chris Dykes and Dan Donahue each taught a session on Finding the Law at the People’s Law School on April 1.

Barbara Evans and Dr. Bruce Conklin of UCSF’s department of genome medicine presented their co-authored paper on regulation of genome surgery at Stanford’s Bio LawLaPalooza conference on April 20, where she also had the opportunity to hear Professor Jessica Roberts present her thoughtful analysis of genomic data ownership. Professor Evans submitted a chapter on HIPAA’s minimum necessary provision for the Petrie-Flom Annual Conference at Harvard Law School on April 28 and was a co-author on a chapter, led by Professor Jim Hawkins, on transparency in electronic health records. On April 27, the Petrie-Flom Center announced that Professor Evans will join I. Glenn Cohen and Holly Fernandez Lynch as co-editor of the book, Transparency in Health and Health Care, compiling this year's conference papers. Professor Evans will discuss gaps in the statutory framework for regulating CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology at Congress on April 28. FDA/Harvard Catalyst has awarded Professor Evans a grant for a study this summer of the distinction between public health and research uses of FDA’s postmarking risk analysis and identification system. With U. Penn bioethicist Jonathan Moreno, Professor Evans will co-chair the ethics and regulatory discussion at the GP-Write Project’s annual meeting in New York early in May. She is leading a writing group on individual data access issues for the NIH-funded LawSeqTM project and plans to attend the semi-annual LawSeqTM meeting at Vanderbilt University in early May. She is working with the NASEM Committee on Future Biotechnology Products to make final edits to their book, Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology, which will be in print soon. Professor Evans is also working on a study of patient-partnered research to present at a June meeting co-sponsored by the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, the Emerson Collective, and the Biden Cancer Initiative.

Dave Fagundes presented his draft paper, Why Less Property Is More: Sharing, Dispossession, and Subjective Well-Being, at the First Annual Property Schmooze at Texas A&M Law School in February. He recently accepted an offer to publish that paper in the Iowa Law Review. Dave was also quoted in a long-form BBC article that featured his work about queue norms.

Jim Hawkins will present a paper (along with fellow UHLC professor Barbara Evans and Harlan Krumholz (Yale)) at the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School at the end of the month. The Columbia Journal of Gender and Law published his paper, Female Perspectives on Commercial and Consumer Law, which is an introduction to a symposium on that topic.

Janet Heppard spoke on the topic of Family Law to members of the community at the UH Law Center People’s Law School held on April 1. Professors Heppard and Diane McManus along with 3L UHLC student, Camille Van Kote, spoke (on April 12) at the Texas Poverty Law Conference; a CLE for Texas public interest attorneys. Their presentation topic, “Probate From A-Z: an Overview,” covered the basics of probating an estate in Texas with and without a will along with ethics issues relating to probate. Professor Heppard also organized and lead an obstacle course activity with 4 grade – high school Girl Scouts as part of the San Jacinto Council GAM event at their Girl Scout camp on the bay in Seabrook, Texas on April 8.   

Tracy Hester spoke at the World Conference on the Environment in New Delhi on March 25 and March 26 about the legal issues raised by using machine learning and predictive artificial intelligence systems to stage anticipatory responses to natural disasters. On April 11, he presented his article Subject-Matter Exceptionalism in Statutory Interpretation:  Reading Laws Environmentally at the International Symposium on Environmental Adjudication in the 21st Century in Auckland, New Zealand.  He also led a workshop session on environmental interpretation and adjudication on April 12 at the New Zealand Environmental Court with justices from environmental courts around the world. On March 28, Hester joined the meeting of EPA’s National Advisory Committee on NAFTA environmental issues in Washington, DC (hopefully not the last meeting of that committee!). And on April 18, he spoke with Professor Dru Stevenson at South Texas College of Law Houston at a panel on the Trump Administration’s emerging energy policies and their environmental implications.

Geoffrey Hoffman participated in an Immigration Town Hall on April 11.The event was lived-streamed on ABC13 and provided an opportunity for experts from the Houston Immigration Legal Services to answer HCC students' questions about immigration. Professor Hoffman also spoke on Current Issues in Immigration Law at a meeting of the Houston Area Law Librarians on April 12. Later in the month, Professor Hoffman signed on to an amicus brief filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of access to counsel in expedited removal proceedings. He and fellow law professors also filed an amicus brief with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump. The case challenges President Trump’s Muslim ban executive order, charging it violates the Constitution’s First and Fifth Amendments. On April 26, Professor Hoffman was quoted in an article published in The Cougar, regarding the recent deportation of the first DACA-documented immigrant under President Trump’s immigration policy.

Lonny Hoffman’s article, Plausible Theory, Implausible Conclusions: A Response to Professor Hubbard, was published at 83 U. Chi. L. Rev. 693 (2016). He is working on his next article, A Review of the Empirical Case for Discovery Rule Reform in Texas. In addition to his academic writing, he was the lead author/organizer of a joint academic letter of opposition to H.R. 720, the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act, which was submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives in March. He also filed amici briefs in McLane v. EEOC in the U.S. Supreme Court and in TV Azteca v. Gloria de los Angeles Tevino Ruiz, et al. in the Texas Supreme Court. Additionally, as a member of the Texas Supreme Court’s Rules Advisory Committee, he participated in regular meetings of the committee of the whole and of its Judicial Administration and Evidence subcommittees, addressing proposed rule changes for the Court. As Editor of The Advocate, the quarterly journal of the Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas, he published Volumes 76 (Preparing for Appeal), 77 (Personal Injury Litigation), and 78 (Hoping For the Best, Preparing for the Worst), and is working on Volumes 79 and 80 (forthcoming 2017). In late 2016 he was the keynote speaker at the Federal Bar Association’s Dinner Honoring the Federal Judiciary and in April he spoke on a panel at the HBA’s Annual Civil/Appellate Bench-Bar Conference.

Craig Joyce presided over the Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law’s Fourteenth Annual Spring Lecture and associated events, sponsored by Andrews Kurth Kenyon LLP. The Lecture featured Professor Chris Sprigman of NYU (Reporter for the ALI’s forthcoming Restatement of the Law of Copyright), speaking on “Copyright and Creative Incentives (What We Know (and Don’t).” Bob McAughan (UHLC summa cum laude 1993), of Sutton McAughan Deaver PLLC, served as Commentator. The Lecture will be published in Houston Law Review.

Renee Knake spoke on the panel Attorney Ethics: Social Media and Online Activity at Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law on Saturday, April 8. The third edition of her casebook Professional Responsibility: A Contemporary Approach (West Academic) was published in early April.

Sapna Kumar was invited to Texas A&M’s Intellectual Property and Global Development Symposium. She presented research on how the rise of nationalism has impacted patent law.

David Kwok’s article, The Public Wrong of Whistleblower Retaliation, was accepted for publication by the Hastings Law Journal.

Jessica Mantel’s article, Tackling the Social Determinants of Health:  A Central Role for Providers, was recently published in the Georgia State Law Review (33 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 217 (2017)). Her article Refusing to Treat Noncompliant Patients is Bad Medicine has been accepted by the Cardozo Law Review and will be published this fall.

Rick McElvaney was interviewed by Emily Akins of Fox News Channel 26 for a story about Consumer Rights. The story ran on the 5:00 p.m. News.

Douglas Moll received notice that he is a recipient of a Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Houston. He will be attending the awards banquet in late April. Professor Moll was also chosen (with Professor Meredith Duncan) as a “hooder” by the graduating Law Center class of 2017. Professor Moll spoke in Dallas at an “Essentials of Business Law” CLE program on LLC agreements and differences in drafting for majority and minority owners.

SSRN reports that Gerry Moohr’s articles, in total, have been downloaded 5,000 times. Her review of Eli Lederman’s book, Infocrime: Protecting Information through Criminal Law, was published this winter by the on-line journal, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books, a website operated by Rutgers Law School.

Michael A. Olivas completed his service at UH-Downtown, and has returned to the Law Center. He will be on leave in the Fall in New Mexico, and on leave in the Spring, in Houston. For the UH-Victoria Provost's Lecture Series, he spoke on the early 1950’s trial in Edna, Texas (20 miles from Victoria), Pedro Hernandez v. Texas; in the audience were immediate family of Hernandez, and the daughter of the victim, who actually heard the 1951 shooting. With UHLC Adjunct Professor Justen S. Barks, he served on a panel at the UH Libraries event, “Culture Remix: Illegal Art, Copyright and the Music Industry.” He also responded to a number of reporters about campus sanctuary proposals and other immigration issues.

Jordan Paust’s article Actual Commitment to Compliance with International Law and Subsequent Supreme Court Opinions: A Reply to Professor Moore has been printed in 39 Houston Journal of International Law 57-77 (2017).

D. Theodore Rave presented his forthcoming article The Information-Forcing Role of the Judge in Multidistrict Litigation (with Andrew Bradt) at Emory Law School on April 1 as part of the Ninth Annual Junior Faculty Federal Courts Workshop. His article Closure Provisions in MDL Settlements was published in the Fordham Law Review. His Introduction to the Twenty-First Annual Frankel Lecture, given by Samuel Issacharoff, was published in the Houston Law Review. Finally, Professor Rave coauthored an amicus brief with a group of professors at Berkeley, Cornell, Harvard, and Temple in support of the respondents in the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. California case, currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. The professors argued that the California courts properly exercised personal jurisdiction over out-of-state plaintiffs’ claims that they were injured by a drug that Bristol-Myers Squibb also extensively marketed and distributed to other plaintiffs in California.

Robert P. Schuwerk announces publication of the 2017 edition of the Handbook of Texas Lawyer and Judicial Ethics (ThomsonReuters). This is the fifteenth edition of this work, all co-authored with Lillian B. Hardwick, who is an alumna of the Law Center.

Professors Lauren Simpson, Janet Heppard and Sarah Morath have been selected to speak at the Western Regional Legal Writing Conference, held in late August 2017 at the Seattle University School of Law. Their presentation topic, “Connecting the Dots,” will describe how UHLC Lawyering Skills and Strategies faculty have collaborated with both clinical and doctrinal faculty to help students transfer skills from their first-year legal writing courses into clinical, upper-level writing, and seminar courses. More specifically, they will address how the collaborations developed, what the collaborations entailed, what they learned from the collaborations, and what they envision for future collaborations. Professor Simpson continues her community service of educating about pollinators, their conservation, and the wildscapes supporting them. She has accepted an invitation to speak to the Texas Campaign for the Environment staff on May 11 about her community outreach for pollinators, including tips on how to support pollinators at home. 

Ken Swift accepted an offer to publish his article, The Seven Principles for Good Practice in (Asynchronous Online) Legal Education. He also recently presented at the 2017 Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, hosted by the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. The presentation focused on a technique for effectively and quickly diagnosing student writing and analysis problems.

Sandra Guerra Thompson testified on the future of forensic science in the United States before the Congressional Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations on March 28th. The hearing was the subject of a post on the Forensics Forum blog. She also published two items relating to forensic science. First, a symposium article co-authored with Adjunct Professor Nicole Casarez, entitled Building the Infrastructure for ‘Justice Through Science’:  The Texas Model, appeared in the West Virginia Law Review. The second item is a book chapter, co-authored with Adjunct Professor Robert Wicoff, entitled, Outbreaks of Injustice: Responding to Systemic Irregularities in the Criminal Justice System. It appears in a new book, edited by Daniel Medwed, Wrongful Convictions and the DNA Revolution. On April 14th, she participated in a Forensic Roundtable at University of Texas Law School. She was also quoted by the Boston Globe on April 19th regarding the dismissal of thousands of cases due to forensic fraud by a drug lab analyst. The interview was picked up in an article by OfftheKuff.com as well. On April 28th, a podcast on Lawyer 2 Lawyer aired an interview with her regarding the same subject. Professor Thompson also kept busy on work relating to bail reform and mass incarceration. She served as a panelist for two panel discussions regarding the bail system and efforts to reform it at a symposium held on March 31st and April 1st. The program, called “An Act of Justice: Undoing the Legacy of Mass Incarceration,” was co-sponsored by the Rothko Chapel and St. Thomas University in Houston. She was also interviewed in Spanish on March 6 by Univision for a news story on the filing of a comprehensive bail reform statute in the Texas legislature. Her monthly newsletter on pretrial justice was quoted on March 10th by Houston Public Media and the Houston Chronicle. She gave a presentation on bail reform at the Memorial United Methodist Church on March 30th. On April 4th, she attended the Texas Senate hearing on the bail reform statute. On April 18th, she spoke on a panel regarding mass incarceration at Rice University.

Greg Vetter presented his paper, Opportunistic Free and Open Source Software Development Pathways, recently published by the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, as part of the panel covering Alternative Frameworks/Open Source Software, at a conference held by the University of Washington School of Law’s Center for Advanced Study and Research on Intellectual Property (CASRIP) on April 8, 2017.The conference title is: The Art and Science of the IP Deal.  

Gina Warren moderated a “Women in Energy” panel at the University of Houston Law Center, which was co-sponsored by the UH Chapter of Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (of which Warren is the faculty advisor) and the student Association of Women in Law on April 19.

Jacqueline Weaver is visiting at the University of West Australia in Perth, a sister city to Houston. She has given two public lectures to date: the first was on "Offshore Safety in the Wake of the Macondo Disaster: Business as Usual or Sea Change?" and the second was "How the Petroleum Industry Can Improve the Regulation of Petroleum." She will also teach an intensive course in International Petroleum Transactions.

Bret Wells’ article entitled The Foreign Tax Credit War was published in 2016 BYU L. Rev. 1895.  

Kellen Zale's article, Compensating City Council, has been accepted for publication in the Stanford Law Review.