Year: 2012

The UT Law Pro Bono Program has teamed with the Law School’s Immigration Clinic to organize weekend clinics throughout the fall to assist pro se youth to petition for relief under the recently launched Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. At the clinics, law students and volunteer attorneys will interview pro se high-school DACA petitioners (aka “DREAMers”) and assist them to complete forms and compile documents to file with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Terry and Joan Oxford, who met at the Law School as students in 1976, have given $250,000 towards faculty excellence

UT Law’s Class of 2015 arrived August 27, 2012, for 1L Orientation and the beginning of classes.

The Honorable John F. Kerry, United States Senator from Massachusetts, will present a talk entitled “The Rule of Law in World Affairs.” Senator Kerry will discuss promoting the rule of law in the Middle East at a time of transition, Iran and the utility of multilateral sanctions, and the role of treaties (New START and […]

Next week at orientation, the UT Law Pro Bono Program will introduce the Pro Bono Pledge to its third entering class.  The first class to sign the pledge, the class of 2013, will graduate next May. Last year over 80% of the 1L class signed the pro bono pledge, committing to perform 50 hours of […]

The law school’s Center for Global Energy, International Arbitration, and Environmental Law will cosponsor a conference in Beijing, China on August 21, 2012, with Peking University Law School.  The topic is “Oil and Gas Development Off-shore: Comparative Legal Approaches to Preventing Spills and Addressing Liability.” Professors John Dzienkowski, Owen Anderson, Melinda Taylor, and Vinson & Elkins […]

Sheri Soltes, ’84, has put her legal education and experience to an unusual use: training rescued shelter dogs to be service animals and companions for disabled people.

Scott Dahl, ’88, is the new inspector general at the Smithsonian Institution, whose collections—and zoo!—he has loved since he was a child.

The William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law and the UT Center for Disability Studies have completed the first phase of their work to assist the Texas state housing finance and Medicaid agencies in an application for federal funding available through the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Act of 2010. The Act resulted in significant changes to federal law governing housing for persons with disabilities, incentivizing states to develop new and innovative ways to support persons with disabilities in integrated environments. States will compete for a total of $85 million made available by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The University of Texas School of Law has awarded the eighth Equal Justice Scholarship to Christopher Larson, an incoming first-year law student. The scholarship covers tuition and fees for three years of legal study. Larson has committed to working after law school on a full-time basis for three years providing direct legal services to low-income individuals or groups at a nonprofit organization in the U.S.

Texas Lawyers for Texas Veterans, an initiative of the State Bar of Texas, makes it easy for bar associations and attorneys to provide legal assistance to U.S. veterans in need.

A group of researchers including Charles M. Silver, the Roy W. and Eugenia C. MacDonald Endowed Chair in Civil Procedure at the School of Law, recently completed a study that found no evidence that “tort reform” for medical malpractice has resulted in cost savings. The study’s results, “Will Tort Reform Bend the Cost Curve? Evidence […]