Category: Student Life

Two graduating students at the University of Texas School of Law have been selected to receive one-year postgraduate fellowships to help pilot the Texas Title Project, an innovative title-clearing project designed to provide low-income disaster survivors with the chance to move to higher opportunity neighborhoods.

Eleven Law School students have been selected by the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice as Rapoport Center Fellows for summer and fall 2013. They will work with nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations in the United States and abroad. Their projects include aiding human rights victims and political refugees, researching civil rights and civil liberties, assisting international courts and tribunals in prosecuting human rights and humanitarian violations, advocating for individuals with disabilities, and pursuing impact litigation on behalf of farmworkers.

Six students at the University of Texas School of Law have been selected as the 2013 Whitehurst Public Interest Summer Fellows. The fellowships are made possible by a gift from Bill, ’70, and Stephanie Whitehurst, and are administered by the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law at the Law School. The fellowships are awarded annually to outstanding students between their second and third years of law school to support their summer public interest work.

On April 23, 2013, the University of Texas School of Law hosted the first annual Beck Awards at a luncheon recognizing the work of the new David J. Beck Center for Legal Research, Writing, and Appellate Advocacy. The Beck Center was launched in the spring of 2012 with support from David J. Beck, ’65, life trustee of the Law School Foundation and founder of renowned litigation boutique Beck Redden LLP. Among the Beck Center’s mandates is honing law students’ oral and written advocacy skills, which are foundational to all lawyers’ success.

The Law School hosted the final round of the 2013 Thad T. Hutcheson 1L Moot Court Competition on April 15, 2013, in the Eidman Courtroom. Finalists Steven Ort and Chandler Raine argued before a venerable panel of jurists including U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel; Justice Patricia Alvarez of Texas’s Fourth Court of Appeals; Justice Scott Field of Texas’s Third Court of Appeals; Professor Jennifer Laurin of the Law School; and Thomas T. Hutcheson, a Winstead PC shareholder and son of the lawyer for whom the competition is named. In a split decision, Steven Ort emerged as the champion.

The University of Texas School of Law has won the 40th Annual Giles Sutherland Rich Memorial Moot Court Competition. To seal its victory, the Law School’s team of Colleen Bloss, ’13, and Yingying Zeng, ’14, defeated the University of Pennsylvania Law School on April 19, 2013, in the final round of competition in Washington, D.C. This prestigious and rigorous competition is sponsored by the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA). The AIPLA is the premier professional development organization for intellectual property lawyers in the country.

On Monday, April 22, UT lit the Tower orange in honor of the Law School’s 2012-2013 national championship teams. Two intramural teams have won national championships already this year, and a third has won a regional championship and will advance to compete for a national championship.

The University of Texas School of Law defeated South Texas College of Law on March 17, 2013, in the final round of the Southern Regional component of the Giles Sutherland Rich Memorial Moot Court. This competition is sponsored by the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), a professional development organization for intellectual property lawyers. The Southern Regional, held this year in the federal courthouse in Houston, was hosted by members of the local AIPLA chapter.

The University of Texas School of Law’s interscholastic team has won the regional round of the American Association for Justice’s Student Trial Advocacy Competition, and will compete for a national championship in the competition in New Orleans, Louisiana, in April.

The Law School’s Interscholastic Mock Trial Team has won the national championship in the 2013 John L. Costello National Criminal Law Trial Advocacy Competition. The law students who won the national championship are advocates Will Clark and Maryssa Simpson; witness Alex Hughes; and alternate Brandan Montminy, all third-year students. This is the second time in three years the UT Law Interscholastic Team has won the Costello competition. The Law School team also won in 2011.

The Longhorn Network recently produced a short video about the Law School's Pro Bono program, and students who have taken a pledge to carry out pro bono legal work.

This academic year, the Law School has formed strong interscholastic teams that will devote much of their winter break to preparing for five moot court competitions under the auspices of The David J. Beck Center for Legal Research, Writing, and Appellate Advocacy. The new Beck Center was launched last spring with support from David J. Beck, ’65, life trustee of the Law School Foundation and founder of Houston litigation boutique Beck, Redden & Secrest LLP.