Albertus Accolades

April 2019

Editor, Robert N. Clark, Reference/Research Librarian

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 traveled to Austin on April 2-3 and worked with alumni and UH legislative affairs to provide legislators with information about a new law center building. Dean Baynes attended and delivered welcoming remarks at the Houston Business and Tax Law Journal Annual Awards Banquet at Hotel ZaZa on April 4. On April 5, he attended the Hispanic Law Students Association 5th Annual Gala at Hotel ZaZa. He also attended the Black Law Students Association Banquet at the Hess Club to celebrate the end of the year and election of a new BLSA board. Inspired by the Climate Survey results, he hosted the first of several faculty engagement lunches on April 8. The lunches are designed to connect faculty from different areas of interest over non-work related topics. Professors Kate Brem, Meredith Duncan, Jessica Mantel, James Nelson, Michael A. Olivas, and Rosemary Vega joined Dean Baynes at the inaugural lunch. Dean Baynes hosted a second faculty engagement lunch on April 9 that included Professors Johnny Buckles, David Dow, Victor Flatt, Janet Heppard, Andrew Michaels, and Ken Swift. Later that evening, Dean Baynes guest lectured at Megan Davis’ Bar Prep class. On April 10, Dean Baynes attended a networking lunch with members of the Asian Law Students Association. Later that evening he delivered welcoming remarks while attending the Houston Law Review Annual Banquet at the Petroleum Club. On April 12, he gave closing remarks at the 2nd LSS Advisory Council breakfast and also attended the Admitted Students Diversity Reception, held at Chapman and Kirby. He gave welcoming remarks at the Admitted Students Day event on April 13. Afterwards, he joined faculty, staff, and students for lunch in the Commons. On April 15-16, Dean Baynes traveled back to Austin and accompanied alumni to provide legislators with additional information about a new law facility. On April 17, he hosted the Annual Dean’s Award Ceremony and Reception recognizing faculty, staff, and students for their outstanding service, academic performance, and other achievements.

Dean Baynes attended the Annual Faculty Excellence Awards Dinner on April 18 where Professor Geoffrey Hoffman was awarded the Teaching Excellence Award for Community Engagement and Professor James Nelson received the Teaching Excellence Award. On April 23, Dean Baynes met with Professors Barbara Evans, Doug Moll, Lauren Simpson, Gina Warren, and Kellen Zale during the third installment of the faculty engagement luncheons. The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) Greater Houston Section invited Dean Baynes to be its featured speaker at the Dr. Lee K. Feine Scholarship Brunch on April 28. The NCJW, a non-profit organization that works to improve the quality of life for women, children, and families and ensure individual rights and freedoms for all through its network of 90,000 members, supporters, and volunteers nationwide, is interested in learning more about the UH Pipeline Program. The event took place at the Brookdale Galleria. On April 30, Dean Baynes attended the Distinguished Faculty Recognition Luncheon hosted by Provost Myrick Short at the UH Hilton. Members of the National Academy, American Law Institute, and Endowed Chairs and Professors were honored. That evening, Dean Baynes attended a Women of the Law CLE Reception “Spring Cocktails & Conversation” at Ouisie’s Table where Professor Jessica L. Roberts held a book signing.

Emily Berman accepted an offer of publication from the Iowa Law Review for her article “Individualized Suspicion in an Age of Big Data.”

David R. Dow's book Confessions of an Innocent Man was published by Dutton on April 9. In connection with the book's release, he has given readings or discussed the book in person in Houston, Austin, Dallas, Phoenix, and Tulsa. He has also given radio interviews to local NPR affiliates or other stations in seventeen markets across the U.S. He is very (very) tired of listening to himself talk. In addition, on the day Patrick Murphy was scheduled to be executed, March 28, Dow and clinical professor Jeff Newberry won a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court, which voted 7-2 to grant their motion for a stay of execution.

Leah Fowler gave a lecture to the University of Houston College of Pharmacy Health-System Pharmacy Administration Residency Program on April 19. She reprised her lecture on "Disability Rights Law for Health Care Providers." She also presented a paper selected from a call for papers with Jessica Mantel at Northeastern University School of Law’s Annual Health Law Conference on April 11. The paper, entitled “Identifying and Addressing Impediments to Data Sharing and Integration: A Qualitative Study of Medical-Legal Partnerships,” is forthcoming in the Northeastern University Law Review.

Christopher Heard and his students in the Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic gave presentations on business law topics to aspiring entrepreneurs enrolled in the SURE™ Program at the C.T. Bauer College of Business on March 30. On April 24, Professor Heard spoke to UHLC students about developing sound professional judgment during law school. Students in attendance also practiced exercising professional judgment in response to hypothetical scenarios they are likely to encounter in practice. The event was hosted by the Clinical and Lawyering Enrichment Organization (CLEO), a new UHLC student organization that promotes experiential education and development of practical lawyering skills. Professor Heard is the faculty advisor for CLEO.

Whitney Heard’s profile of Professor Jennifer Cooper was published in the April edition of LWI Lives. Professor Cooper is an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law whose scholarship examines the intersection of cognitive science and legal education. On April 8, Professor Heard moderated a panel for The Association of Women in Law (AWIL) at the UH Law Center; the panel was comprised of four female attorneys from Akin Gump. Professor Heard and Professor Sarah Morath applied for a Visiting Scholars grant from the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) to fund a visit by a legal writing scholar. The ALWD Board and Visiting Scholars Committee voted to award one of three grants to the UH Law Center to host a visit by Professor Teri McMurtry-Chubb, a Professor of Law at Mercer University School of Law. Professor McMurtry-Chubb’s visit next year will explore her article “The Practical Implications of Unexamined Assumptions: Disrupting Flawed Legal Arguments to Advance the Cause of Justice” (forthcoming in the Washburn Law Journal).

Janet Heppard was honored to receive the 2019 Ethel M. Baker Faculty Award for her leadership in promoting interaction between the school and the community. Professor Heppard also developed and led an obstacle course activity at the San Jacinto Girl Scouts GAM event held at the Girl Scouts Camp Casa Mare on the bay in Seabrook on April 13 for which 500 girls were registered. In addition to helping at this event, on April 27, she was able to co-teach two Girl Scout courses for leaders, Getting Started with Girl Guides and Journeys and Partnering with Cadettes, Seniors, and Ambassadors.

Geoffrey Hoffman was interviewed by the Texas Standard radio program on Julian Castro’s immigration proposal as a democratic candidate for president. Audio is available here. Professor Hoffman was quoted in a Reuters article regarding the Trump administration’s threat to shut down the southern border with Mexico. Professor Hoffman was the recipient of the University of Houston Teaching Excellence Community Engagement Award for 2018-2019. He was interviewed for a news story that aired on KCBS Radio commenting on Attorney General William Barr’s announcement of the reversal of a long-standing policy by calling for asylum seekers to be jailed while their cases are considered. Audio is available here.

Kourtney James created and assembled a panel of colleagues to discuss a presentation on “Diversity and Inclusion Programs: Determining the Right Fit for Your Law School” at the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) Annual Education Conference in San Diego, California, on April 10. This presentation reviewed Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) programs currently in place at law schools across the country, provided an in-depth analysis of three different D&I models, and explored the pros and cons of each program. Kourtney is a member of the NALP 2018-2019 Nominating Committee.

Renee Knake delivered a faculty seminar about her forthcoming book Shortlisted: Women, Diversity, the Supreme Court & Beyond at the University of Tasmania Law School on April 18. On April 4, she spoke as part of a panel on https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2019/apr/big-data-health-tech. Big Data Approaches for Challenges in Health Technology as part of Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University’s Global Conversations series. Her chapter “Becoming Visible” was published as part of an edited collection, Fifty Lessons for Women Lawyers, From Women Lawyers.

Sapna Kumar spoke at the Ludwig Maximilian University's 2019 International Conference, "Injunctions and Flexibility in Patent Law—Civil Law and Common Law Perspectives." Her talk, “eBay v. MercExchange: Model or Monster?” addressed the impact of the Supreme Court's eBay decision on the availability of patent injunctions in the United States. She also delivered a lecture in Munich on her article “Innovation Nationalism,” as part of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition's seminar series. Professor Kumar then spoke at the training program for the Unified Patent Court (UPC), at the University of Strasbourg's Center for International Intellectual Property. She discussed the role of technically-qualified judges, and compared the UPC's use of technical expertise with that of the United States.

David Kwok’s article “Is Vagueness Choking the White Collar Statute?” was published by the Georgia Law Review at 53 Ga. L. Rev. 495.

Peter Linzer gave a CLE talk on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on April 18; it was well received. He has volunteered to submit an amicus brief on behalf of a defendant accused of having made a threat against a sitting judge. He is also working with the Public Defender’s office. He teaches true threats in First Amendment, and has completed teaching First Amendment primarily from the casebook that Nicole Casarez and he are completing for Carolina Academic Press. Professor Casarez is cutting back on her writing for the casebook because she is thinking about retiring, but she will continue her invaluable editing and organizing. Professor Linzer has hired a bright student to work with him this summer, doing general research and working with Professor Casarez on organizing things.

Ellen Marrus, along with Gavriella Roisman a 3L part-time UHLC student and Irene Merker Rosenberg scholar, presented on the collateral consequences of a juvenile adjudication at the Harris County Juvenile Law conference, April 26-27. Professor Marrus will be the keynote speaker at Children at Risk’s Children’s Law Symposium: Protecting Children’s Rights on June 18 at United Way Houston. The Street Law Mock Trial competition was held on March 29 at the law center. Judge Michelle Moore judged the championship round and declared a team from the High School for Law & Justice as the winners. Professor Marrus was also quoted in a Houston Chronicle article explaining how family support, particularly for an adolescent, can have a major difference in the outcome for the youth. She served on the Juvenile Detention Subcommittee of the Harris County Juvenile Board, and is serving on the Leadership Committee of the Center for Urban Transformation in the Fifth Ward.

Douglas Moll (with help from Dan Donahue) has submitted the manuscript for the 2019 edition of Corporations and Other Business Associations: Statutes, Rules, and Forms to West Academic Publishing. Professor Moll also finished his part of a paper on Texas partnership and LLC decisions over the past year (with Professor Elizabeth Miller). Professor Moll was invited to attend the organizational meeting for the ALI’s new Restatement of Corporate Governance. He will be involved in some capacity in the project over the next several years.

Sarah Morath published “Our Plastic Problem,” 33 Nat. Res. & Env’t 45 (Spring 2019), which is currently the most downloaded article on SSRN’s Food Law and Policy eJournal and the second most downloaded article on SSRN’s Environmental Law and Policy eJournal. As part of the Energy and Environmental Law Society and Student Animal Legal Defense Fund lunchtime programming, Professor Morath moderated a discussion with Kristen Schlemmer, Legal Director for Bayou City Waterkeeper. Professor Morath presented “Using the MPT to Teach Legal Writing to Foreign Students” as part of The Legal Writing Institute (LWI) Global Legal Writing Skills Webinar in April. Next year, she will be one of three managing editors for volume 24 of Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute. Finally, Professor Morath and Professor Whitney Heard wrote a successful ALWD (Association of Legal Writing Directors) Visiting Scholar proposal for Professor Teri McMurtry-Chubb. Professor McMurtry-Chubb is a leader in creating curricula to facilitate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and her Spring 2020 visit to UHLC will be designed around her article “The Practical Implications of Unexamined Assumptions: Disrupting Flawed Legal Arguments to Advance the Cause of Justice,” (forthcoming in the Washburn Law Journal).

Thomas Oldham published the spring 2019 supplement to his treatise entitled Divorce, Separation and the Distribution of Property.

Michael A. Olivas finished his teaching career at UHLC, after 37-plus years. He will return for some searches and surgeries in the fall semester, and will retire at the end of December. He attended a Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund board meeting, in New Orleans, and submitted the final edits for Perchance to DREAM: A Legal and Political History of The DREAM Act and DACA, to be published this fall by NYU Press.

Teddy Rave participated in the Berkeley Judicial Institute and California Law Review Symposium on “Charting a Path for Federal Judicial Reform” at UC Berkeley Law School on April 12-13. On April 25, he presented a draft of his paper “Tort Claims as Property Rights” at the 25th Annual Clifford Symposium on Tort Law and Social Policy at DePaul Law School. The symposium topic was “Rising Stars: A New Generation of Scholars Looks at Civil Justice.” Professor Rave was invited to present his new paper on “MDL in the States,” coauthored with Zach Clopton (Cornell), at the Civil Procedure Session at the AALS Annual Meeting in January and at the Civil Procedure Workshop at the University of Texas in October. On April 5, Emily Berman and Professor Rave took their Texas v. United States seminar students on a field trip to Austin, where they met with Supreme Court Justice Jeff Brown and Texas State Representative Celia Israel and toured the Supreme Court and Capitol buildings. And Professor Rave was a co-winner (with Lauren Simpson) of the 2019 Student Bar Association’s Professor of the Year award for the UHLC part-time program.

Lauren Simpson and Teddy Rave won the Student Bar Association’s award for Professors of the Year for faculty teaching in the UHLC part-time program. This was Professor Simpson’s third consecutive year to receive this honor. Additionally, a podcast of the discussion on effective teaching at last month’s UH “Mastering the Craft of Teaching Workshop,” in which Professor Simpson was a panelist, is now available here. Professor Simpson continues her community service in support of pollinator conservation and urban wildscaping. In April, she received her Level 2 certification in the Native Plant Society of Texas Native Landscape Certification Program. Earlier this month, she held an educational event for a local Girl Scout Brownie troop on butterflies and insect conservation. And finally, she volunteered to assist in the plant selection and design of two local organizations’ pollinator gardens―IHS Markit, where she had previously spoken on pollinator conservation, and Wainwright Elementary School.

Ken Swift’s article “Take a (Cognitive) Load Off: Using Principles of Adult Education Theory to More Effectively Integrate a Drafting Unit into a First-Year Legal Writing Course and Ensure Student Success” has been accepted for publication in volume 63 of the Howard Law Journal.

Sandra Guerra Thompson attended the Hispanic Law Students Association gala on April 5 and the 5th Anniversary Celebration Dinner of the Houston Forensic Science Center on April 6. On April 9, she spoke at the Harris County Commissioner’s Court meeting in support of the nomination of Lesley Briones to fill a vacant position as a civil court judge. On April 11, she attended the networking mixer of the UHLC Criminal Law Association. She presented a CLE program on Forensic Science Evidence for the Houston Lawyer’s Association on April 25. The same day, she gave a talk on teaching criminal law to a contingent of Mexican law professors visiting UHLC as part of a program of the Center for U.S. and Mexican Law.

Jacqueline Weaver taught International Petroleum Transactions in the LLM program on global business law at Catolica University in Lisbon in April. The relationship between Catolica and the UHLC is a long-lasting legacy of former Dean Ray Nimmer. He continues to be remembered in Lisbon as a wonderful emissary from UHLC.