Year: 2021

  • Student lawyers prepare for a court appearance on behalf of their clients in the Juvenile Justice Clinic of Texas Law.
    It’s a milestone school year for Texas Law’s Juvenile Justice Clinic. The clinic, which offers litigation experience while exposing students to the operations of the juvenile justice system by placing them as student attorneys with the Travis County Juvenile Public Defender, grew out of a 1975 seminar led by Professor Michael Rosenthal, who had students […]
  • Eva Sikes standing and speaking to five students seated at a table during Pro Bono in January 2020.
    Each year, the Richard and Ginni Mithoff Program organizes a winter break service trip to South Texas: Pro Bono in January, or PBinJ. Due to the pandemic, students did not travel to South Texas in January 2021 — but the tradition went on, online. “We want to continue to support our pro bono partners in […]
  • Gloria Bradford in her 1954 Senior Law Composite. Courtesy of the Tarlton Law Library, The University of Texas at Austin.
    During Black History Month, the Law School is recognizing the central role of impactful Black figures in our past, present, and future, highlighting their achievements and celebrating their successes. One such pioneering figure is Gloria Bradford ’54—a contemporary of Heman Sweatt and Virgil Lott—the first African American woman to graduate from Texas Law, the first to […]
  • A portrait of Zipporah Wiseman wearing a fuchsia top.
    The Law School community is saddened by the passing of Zipporah Batshaw Wiseman, the Thos. H. Law Centennial Professor Emerita in Law, who died on January 20 at age 90. Prof. Wiseman had a long and distinguished academic career, the final 27 years of which were spent as a faculty member at Texas Law. “Zipporah’s […]
  • Portrait of Taylor, Texas Mayor Brandt Rydell wearing glasses and a green tie.
    We’re sending out a Texas Law “Hook ’em!” to Brandt Rydell ’96, who has been honored by the Rotary Club of Taylor as the “Citizen of the Year.” Rydell serves as the Mayor of Taylor, just 35 minutes northeast of Austin. A Taylor native, Mayor Rydell is assistant general counsel for the Electric Reliability Council […]
  • A portrait of Frances Valdez, in a black blazer and pearl necklace and glasses.
    Immigration lawyer Frances Valdez ’05 has spent the better part of two decades advocating for legal rights and the improvement of legal systems for low-income immigrants, first as a student in Texas Law’s Immigration Clinic and then with multiple prestigious non-profits, including Baker Ripley and United We Dream. She has served on numerous boards, including the ACLU […]
  • Class of 2023 pro bono participants (clockwise from top left) Kate Gibson, Marcus Harding, Adarsh Parthasarathy, Neal Whetstone, Leah Weintrub, and Sophia Shams.
    Fall 2020 presented novel challenges for the law school’s Richard and Ginni Mithoff Pro Bono Program, which has developed a rich array of in-house pro bono projects that provide opportunities for students to assist community members with a range of legal problems. After the pandemic moved all pro bono activities online in March 2020, program staff […]
  • Portrait of Robert Estrada, wearing a black jacket and a red and black tie.
    Though born in Mexico City, Robert Estrada has lived a quintessential American Dream. From a small-town upbringing in Brownville, Texas, to service with the Armed Forces Reserve during the Vietnam War, to a job as a television news reporter when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, to working in the White House for George H.W. […]
  • Portrait of Prof. Karen Engle
    A new report from the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice finds that Austin’s Latinx construction workers have suffered outsized consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic because of the city’s economic growth and related political decisions, including a mandate to allow construction work to continue during the coronavirus pandemic’s outset. According to […]
  • Professor Chesney in an open collar blue button-down shirt
    On January 5, Eli Sugarman of the The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation published a short but meaty interview with Texas Law Professor Bobby Chesney. Chesney, the James A. Baker III Chair in the Rule of Law and World Affairs, is a grantee of the Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative. We reprint, with permission, the interview done […]
  • Portrait of John C. Ruff, wearing a navy jacket and a blue and grey tie.
    For this edition of Texas Law’s Student Spotlight series, meet 2L John C. Ruff, Pro Bono Scholar and Staff Editor of The American Journal of Criminal Law and The Review of Litigation! Q: Won’t you tell us about some of your activities at the law school? I’m a Pro Bono Scholar with the Mithoff Pro Bono Program. […]