September 2005 News

At a ceremony held in the Law School Forum, the Helen Hodges Educational Charitable Trust awarded scholarships to 14 students attending Texas Tech University or the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and 1 student attending Wayland Baptist University. Eighty-three applications from graduate and undergraduate students at the three Lubbock Universities and the Health Sciences Center were received. We are very pleased to announce that 5 law students received these prestigious scholarships: Amanda Gundlach (2-time recipient); Mario Flores; Chelsi Keever; and William Denham. We are especially pleased that 3L Victor Rivera received the most prestigious scholarship awarded by the Trust: the Katherine Kent Craig Memorial Scholarship.

You are invited to attend a presentation by Law School Professor Jennifer Bard in honor of National Constitution Day. Professor Bard will discuss the “Constitutional Right to Healthcare?” at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Academic Classroom Building (Room 150) on Friday, September 16, 2005 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. The Academic Classroom Building is located on the northwest side of the Health Sciences Center (4th and Indiana) and parking is free. Please email Casey at casey.carson@ttu.edu for more information.

Professor Vaughn James will make two presentations at the Benefits for Champions Seminar to be held at the Student Union Building on Thursday, September 15, 2005. The first presentation, scheduled for 12 noon to 1 p.m., is entitled "Caring for Elderly Parents;" the second, scheduled for 3 to 4 p.m., is entitled "Where There's A Will, I'd Better do it Right."

The President of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform Laws has appointed Professor Marilyn Phelan to Chair the Drafting Committee to Amend the Unincorporated Nonprofit Association Act, and also appointed her as a member of the Committee on International Legal Developments.  Professor Phelan is now serving on four NCCUSL committees including the Study Committee on the Omnibus Business Organization Code and the Committee to draft a Uniform Cooperative Association Act.

Susan Saab Fortney, George H. Mahon Professor of Law, has been selected as an Inaugural Fellow for the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism (NIFTEP). NIFTEP is a consortium of five nationally-recognized centers on ethics and professionalism. NIFTEP is also sponsored by the ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism and the Georgia Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism. During the First Annual NIFTEP Workshop in Atlanta on September 23-25th Professor Fortney will be making a presentation on interactive ethics programs.

Professor Gabriel Eckstein will speak in England at Durham University’s workshop on “River Boundaries: Practicalities and Solutions” September 19-21. Professor Eckstein will present on the navigational and non-navigational uses of international boundary rivers and conduct a negotiation exercise.

Professor Jennifer Bard's op-ed piece, Evacuees Need Sanitary Haven, appeared in the September 3rd issue of the Houston Chronicle. Click here to read the article.

Professor Gerry Beyer to speak at the Wills and Probate Institute sponsored by the South Texas College of Law in Houston on September 15, 2005. Beyer’s Case Law Update presentation and accompanying article includes a discussion of recent judicial developments relating to the Texas law of intestacy, wills, estate administration, trusts, and other estate planning matters.

A jury in Angleton, Texas awarded Mark Lanier’s client, Carol Ernst, $253.5 million in the first verdict of a lawsuit involving the pain drug Vioxx. “The justice system in America works and it works very well,” Lanier said outside the courtroom after the verdict was announced. More than 4,000 Vioxx related cases have already been filed, and experts say that they expect 20,000 to 100,000 will be filed. This case drew national attention from pharmaceutical companies, lawyers, consumers, stock analysts and arbitragers as a signal of what lies ahead for Merck, the maker of Vioxx.

Read more about the case in The New York Times...
Read more about Mark Lanier in The New York Times...
Read more about Mark Lanier on this Web site...

Professor Gerry Beyer's article, Estate Planning for Non-Human Family Members, is being serialized and reprinted in the upcoming newsletters of the Avian Educational, Rescue, & Adoption Services, Inc. The first installment has just been released in the September 2005 issue.

Tech Law Alumni Named Texas Rising Stars.  A record number 112 Texas Tech University School of Law Alumni were named Texas Rising Stars by Texas Monthly Magazine this year.  These young lawyers, including Texas Young Lawyers Association President Lee Ann Reno, were chosen by their peers as the rising stars of the legal profession in Texas.  Congratulations to all those selected!

Professor Gerry Beyer's 2005 Pocket Parts to Volumes 38 & 39 of the Texas Practice Series on Marital Property and Homesteads were recently released by Thomson-West. Beyer authored the Pocket Parts to update the two volume treatise authored by Prof. Aloysius A. Leopold (St. Mary’s University).