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Two UHLC professors’ research recognized by peer-review site Jotwell

Professor  Julian Cardenas

Kellen Zale’s research on the “The Anti-Tenancy Doctrine” was recognized in JOTWELL.

Professor  Julian Cardenas

Victor Flatt’s research on “Disclosing the Danger: State Attorney Ethics Rules Meet Climate Change” was recognized in Jotwell.

Nov. 11, 2022 — Legal website Jotwell recently featured publications by the University of Houston Law Professors Kellen Zale and Victor Flatt. Jotwell is a publication that provides space for legal academics to identify, celebrate, and discuss the best and latest legal scholarship.

Professor Zale’s research titled “The Anti-Tenancy Doctrine,” written with Professor Sarah Schindler from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, focuses on how the law has failed renters. The paper was reviewed by Professor Serena M. Williams from Delaware Law School.

“Their article surveys various areas of the law that differentiate between a renter and a homeowner when determining a party’s legal rights,” wrote Williams in the review. “Those differences are often made without any consideration of whether a distinction should exist, leading to anti-tenancy bias.”

Williams noted that Professor Schindler and Professor Zale identified five distinct causes for why renters and owners are treated differently: classism, racism, consumerism, NIMBYism and the influence of classical liberalism.

The article finishes, Williams added, by inviting a conversation around responding to anti-tenancy and offers suggestions for future scholarship on Anti-Tenancy Doctrine.

“For many, homeownership is not an option. Thus, we will need to shift our thinking about rentership, and homeownership to ensure that housing status is not the determinant of legal rights,” wrote Williams.

Professor Flatt’s article titled “Disclosing the Danger: State Attorney Ethics Rules Meet Climate Change” about the intersection of scientific and legal ethics was reviewed by Professor Laurel Terry from Pennsylvania State University’s Dickinson Law School.

“The strengths of this article include its easy-to-understand summary of national and intergovernmental climate change reports and its use of two fact patterns to anchor the legal ethics discussion,” wrote Terry in the review.

By the end of the review, Terry emphasized the importance of climate change for the legal community, “The time has come for all lawyers to consider not only how climate change might affect their personal lives, but how it could affect their professional lives and lawyer regulation.”

For more than a decade, Jotwell, the Journal of Things We Like (Lots) has been a space “to identify, celebrate, and discuss the best new scholarship relevant to the law.” In addition to Zale and Flatt, other UH Law Center faculty members have been featured on the site. Last year, Jotwell highlighted Jessica Roberts’ research on “GINA, Big Data, and the Future of Employee Privacy.”

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