Albertus Accolades

June 2015

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.

Janet Beck served as an Immigration Workshop Leader at the AALS Clinical Legal Education Conference. 

Barbara Evans was lead author of a Special Report on regulation of genomic testing that appeared in the June 4 issue of New England Journal of Medicine. She gave two talks at the Health Data Exploration Project annual meeting in San Diego on May 13 and was a panelist in two sessions of the Fifth International Summit on Health Information Privacy at Georgetown Law School on June 3 – 4. She spoke at a workshop on engaging patients in medical safety surveillance at the Brookings Institution on June 23 and at the First Precision Medicine Conference at Harvard Medical School on June 24. She attended a reception to celebrate the opening of Harvard’s new Department of Biomedical Informatics that evening. She has been invited to participate in a brainstorming session with the White House Precision Medicine Initiative team on June 25. On June 30-July 1, she will attend a meeting of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Accessible and Affordable Hearing Healthcare for Adults, on which she is serving. In recent weeks, she collaborated with colleagues at University of Washington, Arizona State University, and University of Minnesota to submit three new collaborative grant applications to NIH. She recently joined the team for the ongoing PoliSeq genome sequencing policy study led by Baylor College of Medicine and also is a member of the multidisciplinary panel for a Greenwall Foundation-funded study of reframing consent for research.

Tracy Hester presented his draft article, Principles for Environmental Statutory Interpretation, to a workshop at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C. on June 15.  ELI has named him as its Visiting Research Scholar for 2015-2016, and he is working on several projects at ELI’s headquarters for the month of June. Professor Hester also participated in the Natural Resource Law Teacher’s Institute in Salt Lake City on May 28-29, and he briefed staffers in the House and Senate environmental committees in several meetings during the week of June 8 through 12 as part of an outreach initiative by the Special Committee on Congressional Relations of the ABA’s Section on Environment, Energy and Resources. Professor Hester will co-chair that committee for 2015-2016.

Geoffrey Hoffman attended a meeting of the executive committee of the Houston Immigration Collaborative at the Simmons Foundation. The meeting focused on ways to help the immigrant community in Houston, including vetting new pro bono non-profit organizations for membership in the collaborative, and developing a mentorship program for attorneys handling pro bono immigration cases. Professor Hoffman also attended the American Immigration Lawyers' Association annual conference in Washington D.C. in mid-June. Professor Hoffman represented UHLC at a meeting at the Simmons Foundation as part of the executive committee of the Houston Legal Services Collaborative.

Jim Lawrence has been elected to the Executive Committee of the North American Branch of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and he will serve on the Committee as the Vice Chair for Training and Education.  The Chartered Institute is a not-for-profit based in London and features branches that span the globe. Jim has also been selected to serve on the University of Houston’s Professional Sports Counseling Panel.  The Panel will assist UH athletes in their interactions with agents as the student athletes consider going pro.

Jessica Mantel has been selected by the University’s Faculty Senate as a speaker for the 2015-2016 Assistant Professor Excellence Speaker Series, which showcases the research of six UH assistant professors. She was nominated for this honor by Barbara Evans. Professor Mantel will give her talk, entitled Addressing Social Determinants of Health:  What Role for Providers?, on January 27, 2016 at the M.D. Anderson Library.  On June 5 Professor Mantel spoke at the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics’ Health Law Professors Conference at Saint Louis University School of Law. She spoke on a panel discussing the integration of health care and public health.

Rick McElvaney spoke on Consumer Laws and Remedies at the Fundamentals of Good Credit seminar sponsored by the Credit Coalition on June 18, 2015.

Gerry Moohr sent West the manuscript, Criminal Law of Intellectual Property and Information (2d ed.), for fall publication. The volume was co-authored by Jacqui Lipton and Irina Manta, from Hofstra.

Nathan Neely finished his 6th marathon on May 31 after wrapping up his work with LSAC’s Annual Meeting work group.

Michael A. Olivas spoke on Houston Matters, KUHF/Houston Public Media, on May 13, 2015 about Rap Lyrics and Criminal Law: https://soundcloud.com/houstonmatters/are-rap-lyrics-protected-by-free-speech. SCOTUS decided the Elonis case on June 1, and Michael briefed a number of reporters about the case. He also conducted a CLE for the New Mexico Hispanic Bar (on Hernandez v. Texas) and a CLE at Tulane Law School (on the Law of Rock and Roll) with UHLC adjunct Yocel Alonso. He also participated in a UH delegation at Swansea University (Wales), where he lectured on “The Growing Role of Immigration Law in Universal Higher Education: Case Studies of the United States and the EU.”

Jordan Paust’s casebook on International Criminal Law (with five other editors) was cited by the Second Circuit in Bahlul v. United States (June 12, 2015).

D. Theodore Rave presented his forthcoming article, When Peace Is Not the Goal of a Class Action Settlement, June 16 at Harvard Law School as part of the Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum.

Jessica L. Roberts presented her work on the Football Players Health Study, in collaboration with the Petrie Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, at the annual Health Law Professors Conference in St. Louis on June 6.  On May 29, she spoke about the American health insurance system at an international conference hosted by the University of Bordeaux in Bordeaux, France. Also in May, the William and Mary Law Review published her paper Protecting Privacy to Prevent Discrimination. Jessica received media attention for her theory about the synergy between privacy law and antidiscrimination law outlined in that paper in conjunction with the “devious defecator” case.  She was interviewed by the New York Times (available here) and invited to publish an op-ed with The Guardian (US) (available here).

Ben Sheppard served on the Drafting Committee for the  ICCA Drafting Sourcebook for Logistical Matters in Procedural Orders, recently published by the International Council for Commercial Arbitration with the assistance of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, Peace Palace, The Hague. The Sourcebook is designed to assist arbitrators, parties and counsel in the organization of international arbitration proceedings. Among other features, the Sourcebook outlines the issues to be considered at the outset of the arbitral proceeding and includes a collection of draft clauses dealing with logistical issues that frequently arise in international arbitrations. Professor Sheppard has also been appointed to serve on the International Arbitration Council of CPR, International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution, a non-profit arbitral organization based in New York.  The Council will advise CPR on procedural and administrative issues that arise under CPR’s recently issued Administered International Arbitration Rules. Additionally, Professor Sheppard served as Co-Chair and as a speaker at a symposium and workshop on “Cross-Examination in International Arbitration” held at the Palazzo Franchetti in Venice, Italy, April 2 2015.  The program was organized by JURIS, the publisher of Take the Witness: Cross-Examination in International Arbitration (JURIS 2010, Newman and Sheppard, Editors). The program included presentations on the principles of cross-examination, preparation for cross-examination, redirect, and cross examination in foreign languages, and featured to mock cross-examinations followed by commentary. Cross-examination of witnesses is a standard feature of international arbitration. This is the third such program designed to enhance the cross-examination skills of  lawyers both from common law jurisdictions and from civil law jurisdictions, where cross-examination of witnesses is not a standard feature of practice in the national courts. Professor Sheppard also spoke at an “International Arbitration Roundtable” sponsored by the International Law Section of the Houston Bar Association, April 2, 2015.

Spencer Simons and his coauthors completed the second edition of Federal Legal Research (CAP), which will be available for the 2015-2016 academic year. Professor Simons is currently working on the second edition of his text Texas Legal Research (CAP), which will be available for the 2016-2017 academic year.

Barbara Stalder spoke on May 13 to over 100 at risk youth at the annual career day held at southwest schools where over 50 professionals spoke in various career choices and college options. Professor Stalder was also named one of Houston's top family lawyers by H-Magazine which is voted on by lawyers and clients.  

Sandra Guerra Thompson was quoted in a Houston Chronicle article concerning possible offenses that could justify the expansion of securities investigations, such as the ongoing investigations of the Texas Attorney General. On June 3, Brazos Bookstore hosted Professor Thompson to discuss her new book, Cops in Lab Coats. Professor Thompson was quoted extensively on the racial divide between the Texas law enforcement agencies and the community they serve in a Dallas Morning News report of a its collaborative project with the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism.

Jacqueline Weaver gave four presentations in May.  She spoke on “International Petroleum Contracts: Key Issues and Key Players” to the Young Professionals Group of the World Affairs Council of Houston; Houston, Texas; May 21, 2015. Earlier in the day, she presented “The Future of the Petroleum Industry in an Era of Globalization and Global Warming: Today, Tomorrow and Beyond” to hotel owners and managers at the IHG Fifth Annual Oil & Gas Symposium; Houston, Texas; May 21, 2015 (IHG is the world's largest owner of hotels, some of which cater to the oil industry where big oil plays are occurring). On May 19, she gave an “Overview of Petroleum Contracts" to the Baker & McKenzie 2nd Annual Global Oil & Gas Institute in Houston, Texas. On May 15, 2015, she presented “Upstream Contracts – Comparative Overview and Key Fiscal and Legal Terms in PSCs, Concessions and Risk Service Contracts;” to members of the Ugandan revenue ministry at the International Law Institute Project Management program; Washington, D.C. 

Bret Wells presented his paper entitled “The Foreign Tax Credit War” at the Texas Tax Faculty Workshop held on June 3rd at the UT Law School.  Professor Wells was also the principle discussant for a paper presented by Professor Robert Peroni entitled “Designing a U.S. Minimum Tax on Foreign Income” at this same workshop.  On June 4, Professor Wells provided two lectures on Federal Income Taxation as part of the UHLC Pre-Law Pipeline Program.  

Allison Winnike attended the 38th Annual Health Law Professors Conference sponsored by the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics and the Saint Louis University School of Law where she gave a presentation on "Health Legislative Drafting and Advocacy" during the “Innovations in Teaching” session at the conference.  On June 10, 2015 she was a guest on Houston Matters discussing the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Whole Woman's Health v. Cole.  Additionally, Professor Winnike attended the Health Law Section meeting at the State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting in San Antonio on June 19, 2015.