Category: Faculty News

The Texas Capital Punishment Assessment Team, organized by the American Bar Association (ABA), today issued a comprehensive report with recommendations to help ensure fairness and accuracy in the state’s death penalty system. “Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems: The Texas Capital Punishment Assessment Report” is the culmination of a two-year review of […]

Professor John Robertson, Vinson & Elkins Chair in Law, discusses the scientific and constitutional issues at play in the laws passed by ten states and now being considered in Texas to ban abortions after 20 weeks because of the scientifically controversial claim that fetuses are then capable of feeing pain.

Jordan Steiker, Judge Robert M. Parker Chair in Law and codirector of the Law School's Capital Punishment Center, has written an analysis of the Supreme Court's opinion in McQuiggin v. Perkins, which was published May 28, 2013.

Jordan Steiker, Judge Robert M. Parker Chair in Law and Co-Director of the Capital Punishment Center, has written a preview of McQuiggin v. Perkins, a federal habeas case scheduled to be argued the week of February 25, 2013, at the Supreme Court, at SCOTUSblog.

Professor Linda Mullenix, Morris & Rita Atlas Chair in Advocacy, has written an article in the American Bar Association's Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases previewing the issues and arguments in American Express Corp. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, et al. (PDF link), for which the Supreme Court will hear arguments on February 27, 2013.

Professor Linda Mullenix has written a commentary on Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Knowles—argued before the Supreme Court on January 7, 2013—in Preview of Supreme Court Cases. The case concerns the removal of a state class action into federal court and addresses the issue of whether state court plaintiffs may stipulate to damages below the federal jurisdictional threshold to evade removal under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA).

The Law School community is saddened to learn that Russell J. Weintraub, Ben H. & Kitty King Powell Chair Emeritus in Business & Commercial Law, passed away December 13, 2012.

Professor Henry Hu discusses how complexity and innovation mandate radical changes in disclosure.

Professor David Rabban, who holds the Dahr Jamail, Randall Hage Jamail, and Robert Lee Jamail Regents Chair in Law at the University of Texas School of Law, has just published a new book, Law’s History: American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History. The book is now available from Cambridge University Press.

Professor William Sage has been awarded a research grant to study the relationship between federal competition policy and health care reform, a subject he first became interested in during the Clinton years. His grantor is the Commonwealth Fund, a New York–based foundation dedicated to identifying practices and formulating solutions to help the U.S. build an effective, affordable, and high-quality health care system. Sage’s research project will be titled "Health Reform, Competition Policy, and Emerging Health Care Markets” and will run during calendar year 2013.

On November 5, 2012, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral argument in two cases dealing with appeals in class action litigation: Amgen Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds, and Comcast Corp. v. Behrend. Professor Linda Mullenix has written analyses of each of these appeals for the ABA Preview of Supreme Court Cases.

University of Texas at Austin President William Powers Jr. has, along with coauthor Mike Green, been awarded the John G. Fleming Memorial Prize for Torts Scholarship. The Fleming Prize is awarded every other year to an outstanding tort law scholar. Powers, a former dean of the Law School, and Green received the prize for, among other things, their “outstanding work as American Law Institute co-reporters for two core portions of the Restatement (Third) of Torts.” Powers and Green will jointly deliver the second Fleming Lecture at Berkeley Law at the University of California, Berkeley, on November 5, 2012.