Events Calendar

In 1992, a federal district court ordered US Border Patrol to stop targeting the Latino community its enforcement actions in El Paso. The case, Murillo v Musegades, emerged from advocacy led by Bowie High School students as they saw Border Patrol entering their campus repeatedly and stopping, detaining and using force against their classmates, teachers, family and friends. The power of organizing and strategic use of legal action resulted in a settlement and a victory for Bowie High School. Lulu Ortiz (’22) will moderate a discussion with former Bowie High School student and class member, Ernesto Munoz, and Barbara Hines, one of the case attorneys and Texas Law Clinical Professor (ret.).

Please RSVP by noon, Sept 28: https://reflectingonmurillovmusegades.eventbrite.com

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/03/75269/

The terms “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” name a cluster of unevenly implemented higher education policies designed to create hospitable learning and working environments for all community members. Recently, state legislatures, school boards, and right-leaning think tanks in the United States have targeted DEI, asserting that such policies do the opposite, fostering exclusion, unfair advantage, and discrimination. Attacks on DEI are of a piece with efforts to dismantle academic freedom, faculty governance, and affirmative action in the wider national polity. The new prohibiting laws are often (deliberately) vague, intended to have a disruptive, chilling effect. Universities are scrambling to respond. The UT System has just provided its FAQs to guide universities on how to proceed.

How might we use this moment to rename, refine, and make more publicly intelligible the set of justice concerns – access, historical redress, fairness, equal opportunity – that were in many ways shorthanded by DEI? Please join us for a panel discussion on “Critical Lives in Red States.” Kathryn Bond Stockton, Distinguished Professor of English, former Associate Vice President for Equity and Diversity and former inaugural Dean of the School for Cultural & Social Transformation at the University of Utah will join three UT-Austin professors, Karma Chavez, Danielle Clealand, and Eric Tang, to explore paths toward a more just university.

This roundtable is cosponsored by the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice and Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, with the African and African Diaspora Studies Department and the Black Studies Collective, the Center for Asian American Studies, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, the Department of English, the Department of Government, the Humanities Institute, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, LGBTQ Studies, the Program in Native American and Indigenous Studies, the Race, Indigeneity & Migration Program, the Texas Center for Education Policy, and the Texas State Employees Union.

Please note that Professor Stockton will also deliver the ninth annual Sissy Farenthold Endowed Lecture in Peace, Social Justice and Human Rights on Thursday, October 5, 2023 at the University of Texas School of Law.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/03/75426/

UT Law CLE’s Mergers and Acquisitions Institute is the leading private M&A conference of its kind in the U.S. for the latest deal trends, structures, pitfalls and opportunities in M&A. The combination of a cutting-edge program with nationally recognized speakers, prestigious U.S. and international sponsors, the Byron Egan Whiskey Tasting, invaluable networking opportunities, and much more, makes this an event you won’t want to miss!

The full agenda will be coming soon! Topics will include: Texas Business Courts: The Dawn of a New Era Carveouts: Still a Piece of Cake? WTF Does ESG Really Mean for M&A? Shifting Sands or Quicksand?: Negotiating Antitrust Risk in Today’s Climate Distressed M&A: What’s So Different From Healthy Deals? Energy Dealmaking Mock Negotiation of Key Indemnification Provisions Getting the Piper Paid: Successfully Navigating the RWI Claims Processes Deal Ethics Pop Quiz with Glenn West

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/05/74437/

The ninth annual Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold Endowed Lecture in Peace, Social Justice and Human Rights will feature Kathryn Bond Stockton, Distinguished Professor of English, former Associate Vice President for Equity and Diversity, and former inaugural Dean of the School for Cultural & Social Transformation at the University of Utah, where she teaches queer theory, theories of race and racialized gender, and twentieth-century literature and film. More information is forthcoming.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/05/74568/

Join your fellow Texas Law grads for a fun evening to get ready to cheer on the Texas Longhorns against the Oklahoma Sooners. All alumni are invited. We hope to see you there!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/06/74130/

Note: This event’s full details are restricted to Texas Law faculty and staff members only.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/09/74888/

Join us for our 3rd event in the Rapoport Center Reproductive Justice Colloquium Series presented by Professor of Law and N. Neal Pike Scholar at the Boston University School of Law Aziza Ahmed.

Abstract: Professor Aziza Ahmed’s talk interrogates the relationship between scientific expertise, evidence, and lawmaking. Largely through the example of the highly controversial forensic method known as the “floating lungs” test in the context of self-induced abortion and stillbirths, Ahmed argues that contestation around medical and epidemiological evidence shapes the regulation and criminalization of pregnancy-related outcomes. The stakes are high. Although in Dobbs, the Supreme Court ignored the role of experts and claimed to throw the question of who should decide when and how a person has an abortion to the people, tensions over science and medicine preceded the case and will continue. Abortion rights advocates, in part by attending to ways that science has been (mis)used in the criminalization of pregnant persons in the past need to examine purportedly neutral scientific and expert-based justifications in the legal regulation of the practice of medicine and medication more closely. Doing so will create new and necessary avenues for legal advocacy, including challenging when and where legal institutions legitimate misinformation about abortion or limit access to abortion based on science and evidence.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/09/73988/

UT Law CLE's 57th Annual William W. Gibson, Jr. Mortgage Lending Institute presents current developments and industry trends, offers practical information on real estate lending, financing and title issues, and provides a must-have set of materials and resources. This year's highlights include: Updates from the legislature and the courts, along with focused sessions on Advanced Commercial Lending and Residential Lending. The United States’ Attorney's Office provides insight on how to spot the red flags for avoiding mortgage fraud. Insight into hot topics like contesting property tax appraisals, FDIC receiverships, bankruptcy, and loan workouts and modifications. Hear updates from the 88th Legislative Session and how they will impact the mortgage industry. A review of the various uses, types of escrow agreements, escrow agent options, regulatory and drafting concerns and form availability.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/11/74438/

Please join the Federalist Society and the Texas Law Students for Life as we explore the state of substantive due process one year after the Dobbs decision through a lively debate between Robert John Pushaw and Elizabeth Sepper.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/11/75507/

Join us for craft cocktails and passed appetizers on the PALS tab at Honey Moon Spirit Lounge! This will be a chance to mix and mingle with the partners at Burns Charest (who will be speaking at our lunch event earlier this same day) as well as other students interested in practicing plaintiffs' law.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/11/75446/

Join OUTLaw for a conversation with Professor Sean Williams about legal issues facing queer parents and families. For example, when a lesbian couple asks a male friend to provide sperm, who are the legal parents? Who is listed on the birth certificate? Although the Supreme Court has weighed in on the latter issue, there is still some judicial resistance to the legal claims of queer parents. Professor Williams will address these questions and more about family law as it pertains to the legal rights of LGBTQ parents and children. Food will be provided!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/12/75548/

Join TLF at Hotel Vegas for our annual fall auction! Doors open at 7:00pm with our live auction set to start soon after. Each year, students bid on silent auction items from local businesses and on experiences with professors. All students, including 1Ls and LLMs, are encouraged to attend, enjoy an open bar, and bid on items. We also encourage the wider Texas Law community to attend. All profits from the fall auction directly support public interest students.

Fall Auction pre-sale tickets are $25. We will sell tickets at the door for $30. Tickets will be sold at the law school at the following times: Oct. 5 from 11-2 in the atrium; Oct. 10 from 11-2 in the Patman Plaza (Breezeway); Oct. 11 from 11-2 in the atrium; Oct. 12 from 11-2 in the atrium; Oct. 12 from 11-3 in the Patman Plaza (Breezeway).

Or you can buy online at: https://texaslawfellowships.org/main/donate/.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/12/74326/

Join us for bowling at the Texas Union Underground! Friends, spouses/significant others, and kids are welcome. We hope to see you there!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/13/75546/

Jacob Mchangama, Director of Justitia and author of Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media, joins us to discuss the history of free speech and the challenges to it today. Light refreshments will be offered. Join us!

Livestream link will be posted to event page on Oct. 16th.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/16/75248/

As part of its Ginsburg Initiative, the Center for Women in Law will host a virtual panel discussion to discuss the caregiver penalty and what legal employers can do to address and remedy the issue in their places of employment. Although advances have been made, the pandemic made clear that women continue to be primarily responsible for child and family care. The panel will discuss research and data about the caregiver penalty, what this means for the state of the legal profession, and what leaders in the profession can do to promote gender equity in the legal workplace. Approved for 1 Hour of CLE Ethics Credit.

Panelists:

• Michelle Budig, Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts

• Michelle Browning Coughlin, founder, Mothers Esquire; Assistant Professor, Northern Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase School of Law

• Juanita Harris, AVP, Senior Legal Counsel of Labor & Employment, DirecTV

Moderated by Veronica Vargas Stidvent, Executive Director, Center for Women in Law.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/18/75469/

Renaldo Hudson is an educator, minister, and community organizer, and focuses his work on ending mass incarceration in Illinois. After being sentenced to death row, Renaldo worked for 37 years while incarcerated in the Illinois Department of Corrections, founding groundbreaking programs including the prison-newspaper Stateville Speaks and the Building Block Program, a transformational program run by incarcerated people within the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/18/75566/

Is there a new kid on the block? Does Common Good Originalism offer a better way forward for the American legal system? With a new brand of conservative legal thought emerging, these questions must be answered. Join us Oct. 19th to hear a debate between Chance Weldon and Josh Hammer and find out where you stand!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/19/75606/

This critical, interdisciplinary roundtable discussion, framed by two exhibitions of materials from Chile at the Benson Latin American Collection, brings together scholars and activists who will focus on different historical memories to consider the history and trajectory of Chile over the past six decades as they think towards possible futures.

Roundtable participants: Arnulf Becker Lorca, Chair in Public International Law, European University Institute; María Diemar, Mapuche Activist and Member of Chile Adoption, Chileadoption de Suecia; John Dinges, Godfrey Lowell Cabot Professor Emeritus, Columbia Journalism School; Alina Namuncura Rodenkirchen, Mapuche Activist and Member of Hijos y Madres del Silencio; Carola Zuleta, Administrator, Corporación Parque por la Paz Villa Grimaldi

Facilitators: Luis Cárcamo-Huechante, Associate Professor of Spanish and Director, Native American and Indigenous Studies, UT; Karen Engle, Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair in Law and Co-director, Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, UT

Conveners: Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, UT; Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS), UT; The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, UT; Latin American Initiative, School of Law, UT; Program in Native American and Indigenous Studies, UT

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/19/74586/

Join your fellow Texas Law grads for a fun evening to get ready to cheer on the Texas Longhorns against the Houston Cougars. All alumni are invited. We hope to see you there!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/20/74131/

Join us for the 4th event in our Rapoport Center Reproductive Justice Colloquium Series presented by Assistant Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law Ji Seon Sung.

Abstract: At a time when policing and medicine are colliding in the post-Dobbs landscape, the extent of hospital’s participation in policing and punishment merits attention. This talk argues that hospitals in the “free world” have become part of the carceral infrastructure. They perform functions essential to the operations of mass incarceration by identifying criminals, helping build criminal cases, preparing people for incarceration, and treating and returning people to imprisonment. Carceral authorities alter the complex, structured, and regulated hospital workplace by their immense formal and informal powers. This talk identifies this deference to and incorporation of carceral rules and practices as an expansion of the modalities of policing and custodial practices, pointing in part to the ways that hospitals perpetuate problems of mass incarceration, such as racial subordination and loyalty to carceral logics of “public safety.”

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/23/73989/

On Wednesday, October 25, the Strauss Center and LBJ School of Public Affairs will host Ambassador (ret) Larry André, Visiting Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, as he discusses how the State Department operates. What is an Ambassador? How does someone become an Ambassador? What is a Foreign Service Officer? What is a Civil Service employee? Who are locally recruited colleagues? What is an embassy? How is it organized? Ambassador André (ret) will end with a Q&A for all of your outstanding questions he didn’t answer during the presentation.

Biography: Ambassador (Ret.) Larry E. André, Jr., retired from the State Department’s Senior Foreign Service in May 2023 after a 37-year career with the federal government (3 ½ years with Peace Corps, first as a volunteer for two years then as a staff member, then 33 ½ years with the State Department’s Foreign Service). He served in a mix of leadership, policy, and management positions.

Ambassador (Ret.) André’s leadership positions included Ambassador to Somalia (January 2022-May 2023), Ambassador to Djibouti (January 2018-January 2021), and Ambassador to Mauritania (September 2014-November 2017). He also served as Chargé d’Affaires, U.S. Embassy South Sudan; Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Tanzania; Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Sierra Leone; Director, Office of the Presidential Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, and Deputy Director, Office of West African Affairs.

Ambassador (Ret.) André’s management (“overseas operations”) positions included Deputy Director, African Affairs Bureau’s Executive Office; Management Officer, U.S. Embassy Guinea; Administrative Officer, U.S. Consulate Kaduna (northern Nigeria); Deputy Management Counselor, U.S. Embassy Iraq; and Supervisory General Services Officer, U.S. Embassy Bangladesh.

Ambassador (Ret.) André’s policy positions (advocacy, diplomatic reporting and programs) included Political Counselor, U.S. Embassy Kenya; Political/Consular Officer, U.S. Embassy Cameroon, Economic/Commercial officer, U.S. Embassy Bangladesh, and Regional Environment Officer for East Africa covering 14 countries from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Ambassador (Ret.) André worked in Chad to assist refugees returning home following the war with Libya, and served both as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal and as Peace Corps staff in Washington, DC. As an undergraduate, he was a researcher at the Rose Institute of State and Local Government in Claremont, California. He speaks French. He, his wife Ouroukou, and their son Isidore reside in Caldwell County, Texas. He has Cal-Tex roots, growing up initially in California and then relocating to Fort Worth, Texas in the 8th grade.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/25/75607/

Join us for an immersive conversation with LGBTQ+ attorneys from six different law firms to discuss what it means to be queer in today’s legal climate. We have a very diversified panelist selection from a variety of practice groups and office locations. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions, voice concerns, and begin the networking process. This is OUTLaw’s premier professional event of the fall semester. A happy hour will immediately follow!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/25/75690/

Join OUTLaw as a mix and mingle with LGBTQ+ attorneys from law firms across Texas and beyond. Drinks and bites will be provided, and there is no dress code. Just come as you are and have a good evening!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/25/75687/

The UT Law School Foundation Board of Trustees will meet on October 26 and 27.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/26/74266/

Cyber intrusions—ransomware attacks, data breaches, hacking, and other threats—continue to make headlines and affect companies and organizations of all sizes. Essential Cybersecurity Law is a one-day, extensive program designed to walk through key legal issues relating to breach preparedness and response. This year’s program features:

Updates on current and pending state and federal privacy legislation that will impact companies of all sizes A detailed walkthrough of the key components of an incident response plan, followed by an interactive luncheon workshop for a sample breach/response scenario A look at the legal and ethical implications of AI and other emerging technology A panel on “The Role of the Board: Before, During and After a Cyber Incident”

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/26/74439/

Join the Federalist Society for a debate over the judicial deference to the administrative state. Hosting Professor Michael Rappaport and Professor David Adelman, we will explore the controversial Chevron deference and the Administrative Procedure Act.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/26/75746/

A Discussion with Professor Jocelyn Simonson, Author of Radical Acts of Justice Join law professors Jocelyn Simonson and Katy Dyer as they discuss Simonson's new book, Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People are Dismantling Mass Incarceration. Please RSVP here: https://jocelynsimonson2023.eventbrite.com

Note: The first 25 students to register will receive a signed copy of Radical Acts of Justice. Cosponsored by the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law, the Initiative for Law, Societies, and Justice, and the Criminal Defense Clinic.

Student organization cosponsor: Public Defense Group About the book: Radical Acts of Justice tells the stories of ordinary people joining together in collective acts of resistance: paying bail for a stranger, using social media to let the public know what everyday courtroom proceedings are like, making a video about someone’s life for a criminal court judge, presenting a budget proposal to the city council. When people join together to contest received ideas of justice and safety, they challenge the ideas that prosecutions and prisons make us safer; that public officials charged with maintaining “law and order” are carrying out the will of the people; and that justice requires putting people in cages. Through collective action, these groups live out new and more radical ideas of what justice can look like. A former public defender, Jocelyn Simonson is professor of law at Brooklyn Law School and the leading national authority on community bail funds. Her work has been cited by the Supreme Court and discussed in The Atlantic, the New Yorker, and the Associated Press, and she has written for the New York Times, The Nation, n+1, the Washington Post, and others. Radical Acts of Justice (The New Press) is her first book. She lives in New York City.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/26/75270/

The UT Law School Foundation Board of Trustees will meet on October 26 and 27.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/27/74267/

The 2023 Gas and Power Institute, is a one-day program that features timely topics relevant to the gas and power industry in light of the changing landscape of rules, regulation, legislation, and environmental requirements. The Institute also provides essential information and resources on the latest industry and market climate.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/27/74440/

On Monday, October 30, the Strauss Center welcomes Christopher Kojm, former Deputy Staff Director of the 9/11 Commission, for a fireside chat with Strauss Center Director Adam Klein about “9/11: What Happened? What Changed?” This talk will be held at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and is part of the Strauss Center’s Brumley Speaker Series.

In their wide-ranging conversation, Kojm and Klein will discuss the background and events of September 11, 2001, along with the growth of al Qaeda and origins of global terrorism, why the US Government failed to stop the plot, and what young people should know about the attacks and how they changed our country and the world.

Lunch will be provided and no RSVP is required. For more information about this event, please contact Brittany Horton at brittany.horton@austin.utexas.edu.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/30/75442/

Join the Justice Center for a mid-semester check-in lunch as part of the initiative designed to support public interest law students whose lived experiences intersect with the legal systems they seek to challenge in their careers.

Law schools need to do more to support the well-being, needs, and leadership development of students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, immigrant students, LGBTQ+ students, formerly incarcerated students, and students with families who have been impacted by the criminal or immigration enforcement systems. This space is meant to build a positive community for students who not only have these experiences, but whose public interest work as attorneys may be directly tied to their lived experiences and/or those of their loved ones. For example: students who have themselves or had family members become entangled in the criminal legal system who are interested in public defense work; immigrant students, or students who are the children or family members of immigrants seeking to challenge the immigration system; low-income students seeking to challenge laws and policy that further marginalize low-income people such as predatory lending, cash bail, etc.

This program seeks to serve as a space for dialogue, mentorship, and resource-sharing that is tailored to the particular needs, and strengths, of students in this position.

Please RSVP by noon, October 24th: https://utexas.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ddtTOx6YjxtBbIW

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2023/10/31/75594/