The Law School has expanded its visiting scholars program to include a constitutional scholar who will teach and conduct research for one year.
By means of a generous gift by Steve Tatum, ’79, the Law School has expanded its visiting scholars program to include a constitutional scholar who will teach and conduct research for one year at the Law School in collaboration with the faculty’s strong constitutional law scholars, including Dean Larry Sager.
This year’s visiting scholar is Mariah Zeisberg. Zeisberg’s research focuses on constitutional theory, law and politics, and liberal and democratic theory, focusing on the significance of political conflict and legal disagreement for theories of constitutional authority. She is currently preparing a book manuscript on the constitutional war powers of the U.S. Congress and president, exploring the value of rightly-structured conflict between these two branches as to the proper scope of war powers.
A Fort Worth native, Steve Tatum currently serves as a trustee of the University of Texas Law School Foundation. Tatum is a partner in the Fort Worth law firm of Cantey Hanger LLP. Tatum’s practice is centered in litigation and appeals work. He is board certified in civil appellate law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. He was first licensed to practice law in Texas in 1979. While at the Law School, he was a member and associate editor of the Texas Law Review and a member of the Admissions Committee. His undergraduate work was completed at Southern Methodist University, where he earned a BS in anthropology in 1976. He clerked for the late Honorable David O. Belew Jr., U.S. District Court judge for the Northern District of Texas from 1979 to 1980, before going to work at Cantey Hanger in 1980. He was named a partner in 1985. Tatum sat on the board of the Tarrant County Bar Association and was a founding chair of its Appellate Section. He is a founding member of the Inn of Court CLXXXIV, and its former secretary treasurer.
In addition to membership in the local, state, and American Bar Associations, he is a member of the Bar Association for the Fifth Federal Circuit. He is also a member of the Second Court of Appeals Advisory Committee and the American Law Institute. Tatum is admitted to appear before the U S. District Court, Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Districts of Texas; U.S. Courts of Appeals’ Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits; and the U.S. Supreme Court.