Faculty Events Calendar: Colloquia, Workshops, Lectures and Conferences

Consistent with its longstanding commitment to fostering a communal environment of intellectual engagement, the Law School is pleased to host countless colloquia, conferences, and guest lectures throughout the school year. Many of these events are specially scheduled, one-time affairs. In addition, the school runs the following regularly scheduled series, which cover a range of formats and scholarly areas.

Events for Spring 2017

View upcoming events

January 19, 2017 Thursday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Faculty Colloquium - Richard Markovits

Speaker:

A Third-Best-Allocatively-Efficient Distortion-Analysis Protocol for Analyzing Economic Efficiency

January 26, 2017 Thursday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:30pm

Moderator:

February 2, 2017 Thursday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

February 6, 2017 Monday

JON 6.207 (Susman Academic Center, The Judge William W. and Margaret R. Kilgarlin Chambers (6.207 / 6.208))
3:45pm - 5:30pm

Moderator:

Law and Economic Seminar -- Allison Morantz // Stanford

Speaker:

Rejecting the Grand Bargain

February 7, 2017 Tuesday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
8:00am - 6:00pm

Moderator:

Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations Symposium

On February 7, 2017, the Texas Law Review will host the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations Symposium, co-sponsored by the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law and the Lieber Institute for Law & Land Warfare at the United States Military Academy. This day-long event will feature panels addressing sovereignty in cyberspace, jurisdiction over cyber activities, international human rights law in cyberspace, among other timely topics.

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Click

February 10, 2017 Friday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
CCJ 2.306 (Eidman Courtroom)
CCJ 2.300 (Jamail Pavilion)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Bookfest - Jordan Steiker & Carol Steiker

Speakers:

Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment

February 10, 2017 Friday

CCJ 2.306 (Eidman Courtroom)
2:00pm - 3:30pm

Moderator:

Bookfest - Jordan Steiker & Carol Steiker

Speakers:

"The Making and Significant of Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment"

February 13, 2017 Monday

JON 5.206 (Susman Academic Center, Bryan and Michelle Goolsby Conference Suite (5.206 / 5.207))
11:45am - 1:15pm

Moderator:

Fighting Organized and Environmental Crime in Central America: Unraveling Structural Conditions and Policy Limitations

Speaker:

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.

February 13, 2017 Monday

JON 6.207 (Susman Academic Center, The Judge William W. and Margaret R. Kilgarlin Chambers (6.207 / 6.208))
3:45pm - 5:30pm

Moderator:

Law and Economic Seminar -- Mitch Polinsky // Stanford

Speaker:

February 14, 2017 Tuesday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Faculty Colloquium - Avraham & Yuracko

Speakers:

February 14, 2017 Tuesday

CCJ 2.306 (Eidman Courtroom)
CCJ 2.300 (Jamail Pavilion)
11:45am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Making the Sharing Economy Work for Everyone

“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.

February 17, 2017 Friday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
8:00am - 6:00pm

Moderator:

PATDAM2

Patent Damages Conference to be held February 17 & 18 at the Law School.

If you want to attend, please RSVP here.

February 18, 2017 Saturday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
8:00am - 6:00pm

Moderator:

PATDAM2

Patent Damages Conference to be held February 17 & 18 at the Law School.

February 23, 2017 Thursday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Faculty Colloquium - David Adelman

Speaker:

Presidential Politics and Judicial Review: Fifteen Years of Litigation Under the National Environmental Policy Act

Co-author - Robert L Glicksman

February 23, 2017 Thursday

CCJ 2.300 (Jamail Pavilion)
CCJ 2.306 (Eidman Courtroom)
TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
5:00pm - 9:00pm

Moderator:

In the Winter of Our Discontent: The State of Democracy in the Age of Trump

Speaker:

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.

February 24, 2017 Friday

CCJ 2.300 (Jamail Pavilion)
CCJ 2.306 (Eidman Courtroom)
TNH 2.114 (Francis Auditorium)
8:00am - 5:30pm

Moderator:

In the Winter of Our Discontent: The State of Democracy in the Age of Trump

Speakers:

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.

February 24, 2017 Friday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:15am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Job Talk

Job Talk

February 27, 2017 Monday

JON 6.207 (Susman Academic Center, The Judge William W. and Margaret R. Kilgarlin Chambers (6.207 / 6.208))
3:45pm - 5:30pm

Moderators:

Law and Economic Seminar -- Dr. Tamar Kricheli-Katz // Tel Aviv University

Speaker:

March 2, 2017 Thursday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Faculty Colloquium -- Richard Hasen // University of California Irvine

Speaker:

Race or Party, Party as Race, or Party All the Time: Three Uneasy Approaches to Conjoined Polarization in Redistricting and Voting Cases

March 6, 2017 Monday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Drawing Board Luncheon – The Economic Rights of Individuals

Speaker:

Drawing Board Lunch - paper presented by Louise Weinberg

March 6, 2017 Monday

JON 6.207 (Susman Academic Center, The Judge William W. and Margaret R. Kilgarlin Chambers (6.207 / 6.208))
3:45pm - 5:30pm

Moderators:

Law and Economic Seminar -- William Hubbard // University of Chicago

Speaker:

Quantum Law and Economics

March 9, 2017 Thursday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Faculty Colloquium - Cary Franklin

Speaker:

Leaving People Alone

March 20, 2017 Monday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Drawing Board Lunch: Medical-Legal Partnership with Dell Medical School by William Sage & Keegan Warren-Clem

Speakers:

Drawing Board Lunch paper presented by Bill Sage & Keegan Warren-Clem. "Medical-Legal Partnership with Dell Medical School"

March 21, 2017 Tuesday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
4:00pm - 6:00pm

Widows: Loss, Land, and the Law

Speakers:

Join us for a conversation with award-winning journalist Cynthia Gorney about her Pulitzer Center-supported National Geographic project, "For Widows, Life After Loss."

Worldwide, there are about 259 million widows. Nearly half live in poverty. Even where laws protect their rights, widows are sometimes mistreated.

In Uganda, as in many other parts of the world, widowhood is a sentence to a life of misery. After her husband died, Betty Nanozi was robbed of everything she owned, twice. Her cow was beaten to death. Her land was forcefully taken from her.

Gorney will be joined by Pulitzer Center executive director Jon Sawyer. They will discuss both the field research behind her project—in India and Bosnia as well as Uganda—and how that reflects patterns of discrimination that are all too common across the globe.

March 23, 2017 Thursday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Faculty Colloquium -- Wendy Gordon // Boston University

Speaker:

Transformative Use, Proximate Cause, and Copyright: Applying Common Law Economics

March 27, 2017 Monday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Drawing Board Lunch - The Standing of States to Protect Their Citizens and Residents from Unjust Treatment by the Federal Government

Speaker:

Drawing Board Lunch - paper presented by Lawrence Sager

Topic: The Standing of States to Protect Their Citizens and Residents from Unjust Treatment by the Federal Government

March 27, 2017 Monday

JON 6.207 (Susman Academic Center, The Judge William W. and Margaret R. Kilgarlin Chambers (6.207 / 6.208))
3:45pm - 5:30pm

Moderator:

Law and Economic Seminar -- Angie Littwin // University of Texas School of Law

Speaker:

March 30, 2017 Thursday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

April 3, 2017 Monday

JON 6.207 (Susman Academic Center, The Judge William W. and Margaret R. Kilgarlin Chambers (6.207 / 6.208))
3:45pm - 5:30pm

Moderator:

Law and Economic Seminar -- Keith Hylton // Boston University

Speaker:

April 5, 2017 Wednesday

TNH 2.124
3:30pm - 5:30pm

Moderator:

Special IP Seminar: Patent Pools and Clearinghouses in the Life Sciences: Back to the Future

Speaker:

Special seminar on "Patent Pools and Clearinghouses in the Life Sciences". Professor Geertrui van Overwalle of the University of Leuven in Belgium will present in a special seminar at Texas Law from 3:45 pm to 5 pm on Wednesday, April 5. Professor van Overwalle is one of Europe's leading researchers on gene patents (see https://www.law.kuleuven.be/citip/en/staff/00015469). A copy of her forthcoming paper on the seminar topic is attached.

April 7, 2017 Friday

CCJ 2.306 (Eidman Courtroom)
8:00am - 4:00pm

Moderator:

2017 Capital Punishment Center Conference: "Comparative Capital Punishment"

April 7-8, Capital Punishment Center Conference: "Comparative Capital Punishment."

This conference, “Comparative Capital Punishment” will address the many commonalities (and some significant differences) in the worldwide movement away from the death penalty that began in the late eighteenth century and that sharply accelerated in the last half of the twentieth century. At the present moment, the industrialized West is an almost completely abolitionist zone (with the notable exception of the United States), while the death penalty is seeing a resurgence in some parts of the Middle East and Africa. This conference will look broadly and deeply at the practice of capital punishment around the world. There are many common themes even in apparently disparate parts of the world, such as the kinds of restrictions and reforms that usually precede abolition, the moral, political, and legal strategies of reformers and abolitionists, the forces that promote retention, and the distinctive possibilities and pitfalls of various pathways to change (legislative action vs. judicial intervention vs. international or transnational institutions and influences). The conference brings together experts on different regions and issues to evaluate the past, present, and future of the practice of capital punishment.

April 7, 2017 Friday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
3:00pm - 5:15pm

Moderator:

Bookfest – Oren Bracha’s Owning Ideas: The Intellectual Origins of American Intellectual Property, 1790–1909

Speakers:

Commentators

Terry Fisher - Harvard Law

Catherine Fisk - University of California - Irvine

Panel 3:00pm - 4:30pm

Recepiton 4:30pm - 5:15pm

April 8, 2017 Saturday

CCJ 2.306 (Eidman Courtroom)
9:00am - 12:00pm

Moderator:

2017 Capital Punishment Center Conference: "Comparative Capital Punishment"

April 7 - 8, 2017 Capital Punishment Center Conference: "Comparative Capital Punishment."

This conference, “Comparative Capital Punishment” will address the many commonalities (and some significant differences) in the worldwide movement away from the death penalty that began in the late eighteenth century and that sharply accelerated in the last half of the twentieth century. At the present moment, the industrialized West is an almost completely abolitionist zone (with the notable exception of the United States), while the death penalty is seeing a resurgence in some parts of the Middle East and Africa. This conference will look broadly and deeply at the practice of capital punishment around the world. There are many common themes even in apparently disparate parts of the world, such as the kinds of restrictions and reforms that usually precede abolition, the moral, political, and legal strategies of reformers and abolitionists, the forces that promote retention, and the distinctive possibilities and pitfalls of various pathways to change (legislative action vs. judicial intervention vs. international or transnational institutions and influences). The conference brings together experts on different regions and issues to evaluate the past, present, and future of the practice of capital punishment.

April 11, 2017 Tuesday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Drawing Board Lunch paper presented by Oren Bracha and John Golden

Speakers:

Drawing Board Lunch: Oren Bracha and John Golden will present a project entitled “Redundancy Concerns in Copyright Law” (pending title)

April 13, 2017 Thursday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Faculty Colloquium - Sheila R. Foster // Fordham University

Speaker:

Rethinking the City

April 17, 2017 Monday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Drawing Board Lunch - paper presented by Jens Dammann

Speaker:

Drawing Board Lunch - paper presented by Jens Dammann

April 17, 2017 Monday

JON 6.207 (Susman Academic Center, The Judge William W. and Margaret R. Kilgarlin Chambers (6.207 / 6.208))
3:45pm - 5:30pm

Moderator:

Law and Economic Seminar -- Ryan Bubb // NYU

Speaker:

April 18, 2017 Tuesday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Constitutional Studies Luncheon - Arab Constitutionalism: The Coming Revolution

Speaker:

Zaid Al-Ali is the Senior Adviser on Constitution-Building for the Arab Region at International IDEA and an independent scholar. In his work, Al-Ali focuses on constitutional developments throughout the Arab region, with a particular focus on Iraq and the wave of reforms that took place in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan and Yemen following the start of popular uprisings in December 2010. Al-Ali has published extensively on constitutional reform in the Arab region, including on process design issues and the impact of external influence. He is the author of The Struggle for Iraq’s Future: How Corruption, Incompetence and Sectarianism Have Undermined Democracy (Yale University Press 2014). Prior to joining International IDEA, Zaid worked as a legal adviser to the United Nations in Iraq, focusing on constitutional, parliamentary and judicial reform. He also practiced international commercial arbitration law for 12 years, representing clients in investment and oil and gas disputes mainly as an attorney with Shearman & Sterling LLC in Paris and also as a sole practitioner. He holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, a Maitrise en Droit from the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and an LL.B. from King’s College London. He was a Law and Public Affairs Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University in 2015-2016. He is a founder member of the Arab Association of Constitutional Law and is a member of its executive committee.

April 20, 2017 Thursday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Faculty Colloquium - Alexandra Lahav // University of Connecticut

Speaker:

April 21, 2017 Friday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Harrington Symposium/Luncheon Talk

Speaker:

Professor Doug Laycock will be the guest speaker during the lunchtime Harrington Symposium

April 24, 2017 Monday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Drawing Board Lunch - Righting Inequality: Human Right Responses to Economic Inequality in the United Nations by Julia Dehm

Speaker:

Drawing Board Lunch paper presented by Julia Dehm

Topic: Righting Inequality: Human Right Responses to Economic Inequality in the United Nations

April 24, 2017 Monday

JON 6.207 (Susman Academic Center, The Judge William W. and Margaret R. Kilgarlin Chambers (6.207 / 6.208))
3:45pm - 5:30pm

Moderators:

Law and Economic Seminar -- John Donohue // Stanford

Speaker:

alksdjf;laskdjf

April 27, 2017 Thursday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Faculty Colloquium - Louise Weinberg

Speaker:

LUTHER V. BORDEN: A TANEY COURT MYSTERY SOLVED

May 1, 2017 Monday

TNH 2.111 (Sheffield-Massey Room)
11:30am - 1:00pm

Moderator:

Drawing Board Lunch - Toward a Jurisprudence of Benefits: Community, Compensation, and Copyright

Speaker:

Drawing Board Lunch paper presented by Wendy Gordon

Title: Toward a Jurisprudence of Benefits: Community, Compensation, and Copyright

May 1, 2017 Monday

JON 6.207 (Susman Academic Center, The Judge William W. and Margaret R. Kilgarlin Chambers (6.207 / 6.208))
3:45pm - 5:30pm

Moderators:

Law and Economic Seminar -- Aaron Edlin // UC Berkeley

Speaker: