Year: 2012

In February, students from the Sheffield Society met with Judge Edward C. Prado, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Prado, a 1972 graduate of the Law School, serves as the community fellow for the Sheffield Society, which is one of eight societies in the Law School’s Society Program. Prado was joined for the talk by his current law clerks, Derek Linkous, Michelle Parthum, Amit Vora, and Alex Zolan, as well as third-year student Kate Nanny, ’12, who will clerk for Prado after graduating from the Law School.

The Chancellors honor society celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary with a Chancellors reunion and celebration on April 13, 2012.

Alumni from all over the country came to Austin for Reunion 2012, held April 20–21, at the Law School. Here are some photos from the festivities.

Barbara Bintliff, director of the Tarlton Law Library/Jamail Center for Legal Research and Joseph C. Hutcheson Professor in Law at the Law School, has recently won three different awards in recognition of her work, two from the American Association of Law Libraries and one from her alma mater, the University of Washington School of Information.

Bill Beardall, director of the Law School’s Transnational Worker Rights Clinic, has been honored with Harvard Law School’s 2012 Gary Bellow Public Service Award. Each year the student body of the Harvard Law School votes to present the Bellow award to an alumnus or alumna in recognition of the recipient’s work to achieve social justice through public-interest law.

Eleven University of Texas School of Law students have been selected by the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice as Rapoport Center Fellows for summer and fall 2012. They will work with nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations in destinations as diverse as Mumbai, India; Washington, D.C.; and Guatemala City, Guatemala. Their projects include investigating cases of disappeared persons, implementing corporate accountability campaigns, assisting in genocide prosecutions, researching litigation on prisoners’ rights, and building the legal capacity of impoverished populations.

On April 23, 2012, the Law School hosted the final round of the 2012 Thad T. Hutcheson 1L Moot Court Competition in the Eidman Courtroom. Finalists Michael Kelso and Courtney Johnson argued before a venerable panel of jurists.

The Student Bar Association announced the recipients of the 2011–2012 Teacher and Administrator of the Year Awards at a ceremony at the Law School on April 23, 2012. These awards, determined entirely from student votes, honor distinguished faculty and staff members for their significant contributions to the Law School community.

At this year’s banquet, the Texas Law Review Association honored Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, '88, of the Supreme Court of Texas, awarding him the Association’s highest award—the Leon Green Award—in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the legal profession.

Professor William Forbath wrote "Workers' Rights and the Distributive Constitution,” which was published in the Spring issue of the journal Dissent.

The William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law will host the Law School’s second annual ice cream social to celebrate public service and to recognize student accomplishments on Monday, April 23, from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Sheffield Room (TNH 2.111). The event is open to the entire Law School community and to family and friends of the honorees.

On Monday, April 16, 2012, the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice will host the last Human Rights Happy Hour of the spring semester. Professor Benjamin Gregg of the University of Texas at Austin will present a talk entitled “The Social Construction of Human Rights in Africa.”