Events Calendar

The Texas Law Professional Development Institute: Prepared For Practice is taught by industry experts and practicing attorneys, covering facets of new attorney professionalism most sought after by legal employers. It is promoted widely to employers, many of whom contributed to the content of the program.

Whether you're a 1L preparing for your first summer clerkship or the fall recruiting season, a 2L working to turn your summer clerkship or fellowship into an offer, or a graduating 3L getting a head start on your legal career, the Texas Law Professional Development Institute (PDI), which is presented each Spring, will help you be a more competitive candidate and a better lawyer.

Online registration will be announced in October and will be awarded on a first-come basis. Please note that 2Ls and 3Ls who attended last year may sign up for this year’s Institute.

For our 2019 Symposium, Texas Hispanic Journal of Law & Policy will host a Latino Lunch Series every Tuesday of February with speakers discussing various legal and policy issues on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Border Zones II: This Land is Whose Land?

Professor Richard F. Duncan will visit Texas Law to discuss the history of the U.S. Senate and how the institution has evolved to embody its current form.

11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m. in the Eidman Courtroom and 12:45-1:45 p.m. in the Jury Room. Lunch served at 12:45.

During the first hour, which is free and open to the public, John Pollock will discuss his work to establish the right to counsel for low-income individuals in civil cases involving fundamental rights in a talk entitled “The Right to Counsel in Eviction Cases: Successes and the Potential in Texas.” During the second hour he will meet with students more informally over lunch to discuss his life and career.

John Pollock is a Staff Attorney for the Public Justice Center and serves as the Coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel. He focuses entirely on working to establish the right to counsel for low-income individuals in civil cases involving fundamental rights such as child custody, housing, and benefits. Previously, he served as the Enforcement Director for the Central Alabama Fair Housing Center (CAFHC) in Montgomery, Alabama, addressing systemic housing discrimination in rental, sales, lending, and insurance. He started his legal career at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, where he worked on immigrant civil rights violations by state and federal officers, involuntary land loss in minority communities, wage/hour violations by employers of migrant workers, predatory lending, and hate crimes. While at SPLC, he founded the Heirs' Property Retention Coalition, a network of dozens of organizations across the southeastern United States working on stopping the forced sales of ancestral property within low-income African-American communities. John drafted the first version of what eventually became the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, a uniform law to reduce forced sales that was adopted by the ABA and the Uniform Law Commission in 2011. The Act has been adopted by the states of Nevada, Georgia, Montana, Alabama, and Arkansas, and has been introduced as legislation in several other states. He attended Wesleyan University and Northeastern University School of Law.

The “Lives in the Law” speaker series focuses on the work and lives of lawyers who strive to improve the lives of others through litigation, advocacy and public service.

Hosted by the Career Services Office, the UT Opportunity Forum, and the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law. Cosponsored by the UT Chapter of the American Constitution Society, If/When/How, and the Public Interest Law Association.

We will present sessions on natural leadership styles, strategic leadership, and change management, among other topics. The workshop will be held on Tuesdays, Feb. 5-March 12, at lunch. Students must attend 5 of the 6 sessions to receive a certificate of completion.

Sign up for a chance to meet pne on one with John Pollock, Attorney at the Public Justice Center, to discuss his career path and current work advocating for civil Gideon representation. This meetings follow his Lives in the Law talk from 11:45 a.m.-1:45 p.m. in the Eidman Courtroom.

Sign up by Monday, February 18 on Symplicity under the "Events" tab.