Events Calendar

Starting on Monday, January 23rd, the Texas Law Alumni Association is pleased to announce that it will kick off its Spring 2017 Townes Hall Morning Coffee for all students every Monday morning. Please bring your favorite travel mug from home (we are “going green,” so no paper products will be provided) and enjoy FREE coffee every Monday morning to start off your week on behalf of the Alumni Association. Coffee will be located at one, large station located near the 1L Classrooms (by TNH 2.140, TNH 2.139, etc.) beginning at 8:45 am. until it's gone, so get there early!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/13/28261/

Please join the Rapoport Center for a Human Rights Speaker Series event featuring Mark Ungar, Professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College and Graduate Center; Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice, Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/13/28365/

“The Next Legal Profession: Lawyers Creating Sustainable Local Economies”

Join us for a panel discussion on the role transactional law can play in creating a sustainable economy, led by visionary attorney Janelle Orsi, Executive Director & Co-Founder of the Sustainable Economies Law Center visiting as the G. Rollie White Scholar in Residence, who will speak and join a panel discussion with local lawyers whose transactional practices promote social justice.

Lunch provided

Event synopsis: At the rate that humans are currently disrupting ecosystems and widening the wealth gap, the world needs nothing short of one million lawyers to shift the focus of their work to supporting the development of land trusts, cooperatives, and a variety of projects and enterprises that build just, equitable, and sustainable economies. As every community reinvents its systems for accessing food, energy, goods, water, housing, and transportation, lawyers -- and particularly transactional lawyers -- will play a key role in developing the legal blueprint for the next economy.

About Janelle Orsi: Janelle Orsi is the Executive Director & Co-Founder of the Sustainable Economies Law Center in Oakland, CA, which facilitates the growth of more sustainable and localized economies through education, research, and advocacy. Orsi also has her own law and mediation practice focused on helping individuals and organizations share resources and create more sustainable communities. She works with social enterprises, non-profits, cooperatives, community gardens, cohousing communities, ecovillages, and others doing innovative work to change the world. Her primary areas of legal specialty are real estate, small business, nonprofit, and estate planning law. She is also the author of Practicing Law in the Sharing Economy. For more information, see http://www.theselc.org/staff

Orsi's visit as a G. Rollie White Public Interest Scholar is supported by a generous gift from the G. Rollie White Trust. The program brings outstanding legal scholars, practitioners and advocates from the field of public service to Texas Law to foster discussion of issues related to public interest law, to raise the profile of lawyers working in this area, and to encourage students to view public service as an honored and expected part of every legal career. Orsi is Texas Law’s sixth G. Rollie White Public Interest Scholar.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/13/27744/

“Making the Sharing Economy Work for Everyone”

An address by visionary attorney Janelle Orsi, Executive Director & Co-Founder of the Sustainable Economies Law Center, visiting the Law School as the G. Rollie White Scholar in Residence

Lunch provided

Event synopsis: From tool lending libraries, to municipal bike shares, to multi-billion dollar online platforms like Uber and Airbnb, the "sharing economy" is spreading rapidly. While there are clear environmental and social benefits, the sharing economy has not yet proven itself to be a complete remedy for social inequities and environmental ills, particularly when profit-driven companies act as intermediaries of peer-to-peer sharing. What can we do to ensure that the sharing economy will reduce consumption, while building economic prosperity for all? What safeguards exist to protect workers, users, communities, and environments? How should governments regulate activities in the sharing economy? What governance and ownership structures will produce the best social outcomes? Janelle Orsi will discuss the rapidly changing state of the sharing economy as well as ways in which the sharing economy could be, and in some cases is already, a truly transformative force for social and environmental justice.

About Janelle Orsi: Janelle Orsi is the Executive Director & Co-Founder of the Sustainable Economies Law Center in Oakland, CA, which facilitates the growth of more sustainable and localized economies through education, research, and advocacy. Orsi also has her own law and mediation practice focused on helping individuals and organizations share resources and create more sustainable communities. She works with social enterprises, non-profits, cooperatives, community gardens, cohousing communities, ecovillages, and others doing innovative work to change the world. Her primary areas of legal specialty are real estate, small business, nonprofit, and estate planning law. She is also the author of Practicing Law in the Sharing Economy. For more information, see http://www.theselc.org/staff

Orsi's visit as a G. Rollie White Public Interest Scholar is supported by a generous gift from the G. Rollie White Trust. The program brings outstanding legal scholars, practitioners and advocates from the field of public service to Texas Law to foster discussion of issues related to public interest law, to raise the profile of lawyers working in this area, and to encourage students to view public service as an honored and expected part of every legal career. Orsi is Texas Law’s sixth G. Rollie White Public Interest Scholar.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/14/25144/

O’Melveny & Myers LLP

Two Embarcadero Center, 28th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94111

6:00 -7:30 p.m.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/15/27445/

Latham & Watkins LLP

650 Town Center Drive

20th Floor

Costa Mesa, CA 92626-1925

11:45 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/16/27464/

The Texas Law Alumni Association is excited to announce the return of Popcorn Break in Spring 2017! Starting February 2, 2017, Popcorn Break will be every Thursday afternoon from 1:30 – 2:30 pm. The popcorn will be located in the Tom Clark Lounge. We look forward to seeing you there!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/16/28246/

Arent Fox LLP

Gas Company Tower

555 West Fifth Street, 48th Floor

Los Angeles, CA 90013

6:00 – 7:30 p.m.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/16/27465/

Starting on Monday, January 23rd, the Texas Law Alumni Association is pleased to announce that it will kick off its Spring 2017 Townes Hall Morning Coffee for all students every Monday morning. Please bring your favorite travel mug from home (we are “going green,” so no paper products will be provided) and enjoy FREE coffee every Monday morning to start off your week on behalf of the Alumni Association. Coffee will be located at one, large station located near the 1L Classrooms (by TNH 2.140, TNH 2.139, etc.) beginning at 8:45 am. until it's gone, so get there early!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/20/28262/

The Federalist Society presents a debate about the scope of executive power in immigration. Lunch will be served!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/23/28924/

The Texas Law Alumni Association is excited to announce the return of Popcorn Break in Spring 2017! Starting February 2, 2017, Popcorn Break will be every Thursday afternoon from 1:30 – 2:30 pm. The popcorn will be located in the Tom Clark Lounge. We look forward to seeing you there!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/23/28247/

Whatever one’s political views, it is hard to believe that the past election campaign and its result—most dramatically, the election of a person who received almost three million fewer votes than his rival, but nonetheless prevailed in the electoral college—put to rest widely shared concerns about the health of American democracy. And, with Brexit in the United Kingdom and the more general travails of the European Union, not to mention other parts of the world, there is probably more general anxiety about the prospects for liberal democracy than at any time at least since World War II (and the run-up to World War II in the 1930s).

The University of Texas Law School is sponsoring a symposium, “In the Winter of Our Discontent: The State of Democracy in the Age of Trump,” on Thursday, February 23, and Friday, February 24, which will address some of these widespread anxieties. In particular, it will focus on four recent books reflecting on the challenges facing democratic political systems at home and abroad:

Bruce Cain (Stanford University), DEMOCRACY MORE OR LESS: AMERICA’S POLITICAL REFORM QUANDARY

Edward Foley (Ohio State School of Law), BALLOT BATTLES: THE HISTORY OF DISPUTED ELECTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

Samuel Issacharoff (New York University School of Law), FRAGILE DEMOCRACIES: CONTESTED DEMOCRACY IN THE ERA OF CONSTITUTIONAL COURTS

Nancy Rosenblum (Professor Emerita, Harvard Department of Government), GOOD NEIGHBORS: THE DEMOCRACY OF EVERYDAY LIFE IN AMERICA (Princeton)

The symposium will begin on Thursday at 5:30, when Sam Issacharoff, a cherished former member of the UT faculty and now a professor at the New York University School of Law, will deliver a public lecture on “Anxieties of Democracy.” That lecture, like all of the events will take place in the Eidman Courtroom.

Please RSVP here.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/23/27244/

The Houston Club

Bush Ballroom

910 Louisiana Street

One Shell Plaza, 49th Floor

Houston, TX 77002

6:00 – 7:30 p.m.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/23/27466/

The University of Texas Law School is sponsoring a symposium, “In the Winter of Our Discontent: The State of Democracy in the Age of Trump,” on Thursday, February 23, and Friday, February 24, which will address some of these widespread anxieties. In particular, it will focus on four recent books reflecting on the challenges facing democratic political systems at home and abroad:

Bruce Cain (Stanford University), DEMOCRACY MORE OR LESS: AMERICA’S POLITICAL REFORM QUANDARY

Edward Foley (Ohio State School of Law), BALLOT BATTLES: THE HISTORY OF DISPUTED ELECTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

Samuel Issacharoff (New York University School of Law), FRAGILE DEMOCRACIES: CONTESTED DEMOCRACY IN THE ERA OF CONSTITUTIONAL COURTS

Nancy Rosenblum (Professor Emerita, Harvard Department of Government), GOOD NEIGHBORS: THE DEMOCRACY OF EVERYDAY LIFE IN AMERICA (Princeton)

In part because of the press of current events, which has resulted in the expansion of the conference originally envisioned last summer, Friday will be a packed day, beginning with a welcome and general overview of the symposium at 8:45 by Dean Ward Farnsworth and Professor Levinson, respectively. The first panel, on Issacharoff’s Fragile Democracies, will follow immediately from 9-10:45. The panel, moderated by Prof. Gary Jacobsohn (UT Department of Government and Law School), will include Zack Elkins (UT Department of Government), Jack Balkin (Yale Law School), Victor Ferreres (UT Law School), and Willy Forbath (UT Law School), with a reply by Issacharoff. Following a short break, a second panel, from 11-12:15 will address the issues raised by Rosenblum’s Good Neighbors. The discussants will be Dana Stauffer of the U.T. Government Department, and Levinson.

A lunch for everyone in attendance will commence at 12:30 in the Francis Auditorium, with a talk at 12:45 by Alex Keyssar, a professor at Harvard’s J.F.K. School, on his forthcoming book on why the electoral college persists in spite of all of the criticism directed at it. That will be followed, around 1:30, by a discussion/debate between Princeton Professor of Politics Keith Whittington, on the one hand and U.T. Professors Levinson, Jeffrey Tulis, and Jeremi Suri, who co-authored an op-ed in the New York Daily News pleading with Republican electors to exercise their “Hamiltonian prerogative” (as enunciated in Federalist 68) to vote for someone other than the egregious Donald Trump for the presidency.

A third panel, from 2:30-4:00, will consider Bruce Cain’s Democracy More or Less. The principal discussant will be Harvard Prof. Jennifer Hochschild, the immediate past president of the American Political Science Association, who will be joined by Nancy Rosenblum, prior to a response by Cain. The final event of this long day, from 4:15-5:45, will examine Ned Foley’s definitive examination of post-election disputes in American history. The primary discussant will be Keith Whittington, with the further participation of Zack Elkins, Issacharoff, and Mimi Marziani, now the Executive Director, Texas Civil Rights Project, and, of course, Foley himself.

The questions presented by these books and their authors obviously are all too timely. Given the topics and our current “discontents”, it is easy to promise these issues will be address with proper seriousness and scholarly knowledge.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2017/02/24/27264/