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UH Law Center honored for achievement in global legal skills education

Clinical Assistant Professors Megan Davis, left, and Katherine Brem, right represented the University of Houston Law Center at the 14th Global Legal Skills Conference last month in Arizona.

Clinical Assistant Professors Megan Davis, left, and Katherine Brem, right represented the University of Houston Law Center at the 14th Global Legal Skills Conference last month in Arizona.

Jan. 8, 2020 – The University of Houston Law Center was recognized for enhancing global legal skills and global legal skills education at the 14th Global Legal Skills Conference in December at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law in Phoenix.

“I am delighted that the Law Center has been recognized with this great honor,” said Dean Leonard M. Baynes. “We have many programs and efforts that make the Law Center global in focus. It is wonderful that our efforts have been acknowledged”

The national conference highlights individuals, institutions, and law schools around the world that give special attention to and support for global legal skills training. Lawyering Skills and Strategies Professors Kate Brem and Megan Davis teach foreign students during the first semester of their LL.M. program and received the award on UHLC’s behalf.

“We are very excited about the Global Legal Skills Award to University of Houston Law Center and the recognition of our esteemed LSS professors Brem and Davis for this well-deserved honor," said Executive Director of Global and Graduate Programs Karen Jones. "We are proud of the program at UHLC that focuses on foreign lawyers and the great efforts that have been made to assist our foreign LL.M. students who study here at UHLC.

"We have seen a steady increase in the success of our foreign LL.Ms and that is certainly due in no small part to the attention that has been placed on LSS. UHLC is an international law school that has a strong and ever increasing global footprint. The recognition of UHLC and our LSS professors helps to confirm the impact of our efforts.”

Among the reasons the conference selected the Law Center as a 2019 law school recipient is the Law Center’s strong commitment to teaching students the legal skills necessary to succeed in an increasingly global marketplace, and equally strong commitment to fostering research and programming useful to international practitioners.

The Law Center was cited specifically for the following student initiatives:

  • The Law Center offers almost three dozen independent courses related to both traditional international law issues like tax and arbitration, but also specialized issues unique to our corner of the world such as crimmigration and transnational petroleum law (lex petrolea).
  • UHLC supports a full-time librarian dedicated to foreign and international law research.
  • The Law Center and the University of Calgary Faculty of Law have partnered to form the International Energy Lawyers Program, a dual program that permits students to earn both American and Canadian law degrees in four years.
  • The Center for U.S. and Mexican Law assists Law Center students to arrange summer externships in Mexico City with Mexican institutions such as Pemex and the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, among others.
  • The Law Center sponsors award-winning teams in the Competencia Arbitraje Internacional de Inversión, a Spanish-language arbitration competition, as well as other international competitions.
  • The Law Center annually hosts a number of foreign-trained and foreign-licensed LL.M. candidates who study U.S. law alongside our domestic J.D. students, enhancing the marketability of foreign and U.S.-based students alike.
  • In addition to these student-centered efforts, the Law Center fosters centers that organize research symposia and professional seminars on current comparative law issues related to its location in one of the largest international trading hubs in the Americas.
  • In 2019 the Law Center created the Center on Global Law and Policy for the Americas, an international center supporting research, scholarship, and teaching related to international comparative law.
  • The Law Center has long sponsored the Center for U.S. and Mexican Law, supporting research, scholarship, and teaching related to energy, health, immigration, corporate, and human rights laws – for students and professionals.
  • The Law Center promotes professional cooperation and comparative legal education through a partnership with the North American Consortium on Legal Education, 13 participating law schools in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

The Law Center has joined a select cadre of law schools recognized by the conference for commitment to global legal skills training. Other law schools that have achieved this distinction include Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey in Mexico, Melbourne Law School in Australia; Pacific McGeorge School of Law, Peking University School of Transnational Law in, Qatar University College of Law, University of Verona Department of Law in Italy and the Jigme Singye Wangchuk School of Law in Bhutan.

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