Congratulations to Thornton Professor of Law Brian Shannon on having his Texas Tech Law Review article on reforming the Texas insanity defense selected as the Texas Bar Foundation's Outstanding Law Review Article for 2007. The Bar Foundation Award is the preeminent award for legal scholarship and is presented annually to designate the most important and best written legal article published in Texas.

Several aspects of this prestigious award are worth noting. First, Professor Shannon also won this award in 2002, and Professor Larry Spain won the award in 2005, so a Texas Tech University School of Law professor has won the most important award for legal scholarship in Texas three of the last six years. Second, the best legal scholarship in Texas was published in the Texas Tech Law Review. This award, coupled with last year's highly acclaimed Criminal Law Symposium issue, is clear indication that our relatively young law review is establishing itself as one of the nation's premier forums for legal scholarship. Third, Professor Shannon has directed the monetary award associated with this selection to our student scholarship fund. Many law schools advertise faculty who care about students – ours really do.

Please join me in congratulating Professor Shannon on the singularly outstanding achievement of producing the best legal scholarship in Texas for two of the last six years.

Walter B. Huffman
Dean and W. Frank Newton Professor of Law