Events Calendar

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Present-day jurisprudence primarily limits state power by recognizing rights. Whereas the federal government is considered one of limited, enumerated powers, state governments are understood to have a general and broad “police power,” and thus fewer internal limitations on what they can do. But as the Supreme Court’s recent jurisprudence on rights evolves, it’s worth rethinking not just how rights protect individuals, but how internal limits on arbitrary exercises of government power can protect them too.

Professor Christina Mulligan (Brooklyn Law) joins us to explore the nature, evolution, and internal limits of the state police power. Lunch will be served. Please RSVP at the link.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2025/10/14/82821/

Take a break from your schedule to recharge and connect. The Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) will be hosting a meditative tea ceremony and dinner from Nori, offering a moment of mindfulness while providing an introduction to ALDF’s mission and work in animal law. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn how to get involved, network with peers, and explore ways to advocate for animals through the law.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2025/10/14/84597/

Jennifer Banda, Director of the Center for Women in Law, will host a conversation with Ambassador Carrin F. Patman, former ambassador to Iceland, respected litigator, public service leader and CWIL Founder.

For three decades, Ambassador Patman was a litigator at Bracewell, concentrating on high-stakes litigation, and served on the firm’s management committee. In 2022, President Biden nominated Patman to be the United States Ambassador to the Republic of Iceland, and she was confirmed the same year. Ambassador Patman graduated from Duke University and The University of Texas School of Law, where she was a member of the Texas Law Review.

During this one-hour conversation, she will discuss her 30-year litigation career and the criticality of strategic thinking, zealous client representation, ethical integrity, and negotiation and communication skills.

The conversation will also focus on her just completed ambassadorship, with a discussion about the diplomatic role of an ambassador, the path to public service, her specific work fostering the U.S. and Iceland partnership, engagement through NATO and advocacy for U.S. policies on a range of international issues.

Ambassador Patman will also discuss her commitment to public service and leadership and the importance of cultivating future leaders, including discussion of her own community service roles. She has been very active in her local community in Houston, chairing of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County. At the University of Texas, she has served as president of the Law School Alumni Association, president of the Texas Law Review Association, Trustee and Senior Trustee of the Law School Foundation and founding board member of the Center for Women in Law. She and her husband founded The Patman Center for Civil and Political Engagement at the LBJ School.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2025/10/15/84657/

Lunch with attorneys from Willkie discussing practice groups and their firms.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2025/10/16/82585/

Join us for a special discussion featuring Jim Harrington, Retired Founder of the Texas Civil Rights Project, in conversation with Professor Helen Gaebler. Together, they will explore Harrington’s career and new book, The Texas Civil Rights Project: How We Built a Social Justice Movement.  

The event will take place in the Eidman Courtroom (CCJ 2.306) from 11:50 AM to 12:50 PM. Lunch will be provided in the Jamail Pavilion immediately following the discussion.  

Please RSVP  for lunch by noon on Oct 13: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-discussion-with-jim-harrington-author-of-the-texas-civil-rights-project-tickets-1693521260679?aff=oddtdtcreator

About the Author:  

Jim Harrington grew up in Michigan and received his law degree in 1973 from the University of Detroit. Prior to that, he worked seven summers with migrants in southwest Michigan, most of whom traveled from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.  

After law school, Jim served as Director of the South Texas Project for ten years in the Rio Grande Valley. His legal work, some of it class actions, included the rights of farm workers and poor people in Valley to organize, McAllen police brutality, grand jury discrimination in Hidalgo and Willacy Counties, ending the exclusion of farm laborers from the state’s worker compensation and unemployment compensation laws, abolishing the use of “el cortito,” requiring portable toilets and drinking water in the fields during harvest time, and including farm workers under “right-to-know pesticide regulations. He served as César Chávez’ Texas attorney for 18 years. 

In 1983, Jim became Legal Director of the Texas Civil Liberties Union in Austin. In 1990, Jim founded the Texas Civil Rights Project, a non-profit foundation that promotes social, racial, economic justice, and civil liberty for low income and poor persons. By the time he retired in March 2016, the Project had grown to a staff of 40 with offices in six Texas locations, including along the border in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso, and established itself as a strong, community-based proponent of civil rights.  

Jim has handled a wide array of civil rights cases, some precedent-setting, involving voting, free speech and assembly, immigration, capital punishment, police misconduct, student rights, privacy, racial and ethnic discrimination, labor unions, and the rights of persons with disabilities. His suit against the Texas Supreme Court was instrumental in establishing state funding for legal aid programs.  

Jim was an adjunct professor at University of Texas Law School for 27 years and taught undergraduate civil liberties courses at UT. He has served on human rights delegations to Central and South America and Israel and Palestinian territories.  

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2025/10/16/83481/

Texas Federalist Society is hosting a debate on the principles that informed the Founding of the United States - specifically, whether Christianity or the Enlightenment was at the foundation of the country. We will host Professor Justin Dyer and Professor Devin Stauffer, both of whom are from the University of Texas College of Liberal Arts to debate this issue. Chick-fil-a will be provided!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2025/10/16/84477/

A Shabbat meal hosted by JLS for alumni, students, and professors as well as their families. We ask you RSVP by the 14th so we have enough food and drinks, thanks! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdBwVr75iEGMT8O2w2Kpf6bndeGZbIPga3Y0mhzbKN90CQRyA/viewform?usp=header

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2025/10/17/84192/