Texas Wesleyan School of Law

April 2013

Cynthia Alkon, associate professor of law, was a guest speaker, via Skype, during Professor Jennifer Reynold’s Negotiation class at the University of Oregon School of Law on the topic of plea bargaining on April 2, 2013. She was also a guest speaker during Professor Andrea Schneider’s Negotiation class at Marquette University’s School of Law in Milwaukee,Wisconsin, on the topic of plea bargaining, April 7, 2012.

Professor Alkon’s article, “The Flawed U.S. Approach to Rule of Law Development,” published in 117 Penn State Law Review 797 (2013) was ranked on SSRN’s Top Ten Recent Download list for: Law, Institutions & Development eJournal.

Susan Ayres, professor of law, was asked to review a law and literature book for Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. The book for review is In Contempt: Nineteenth-Century Women, Law and Literature(2012) by Kristin Kalsem. 

Sahar Aziz, associate professor of law, was quoted in an article, “Boston bombings test strength of new Muslim role in American Society,” by Taimur Khan in The National, the Abu Dhabi Media company’s first English-language publication, United Arab Emirates, April 18,2013.

• Professor Aziz’s paper, “Addressing Discrimination against Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians: Testimony before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,” was recently listed on SSRN’s Top Ten download list for: LSN: Anti-Discrimination Law (Topic), LSN: Due Process & Equal Protection (Topic), LSN: Employment Tort Law (Topic) and PSN: Politics of Ethnicity (Topic).
• Aziz’s paper, “Policing Terrorists in the Community,” was recently listed on SSRN’s Top Ten download list for: SRPN Subject Matter eJournals and Sustainability Research & Policy Network.
• Aziz presented her paper “Gender and Elections After Egypt’s Jan.25 Revolution,” at the American Society of Comparative Law Younger Comparativists Committee Second Annual Conference, New Voices in Comparative Law, University of Indiana McKinney School of Law, April 18-19, 2013.
• Professor Aziz’s op-ed, “Egypt’s war of attrition,” was published in Al Jazeera, April 7, 2013.
• Aziz accepted an offer from the United States Institute for Peace to publish an issue brief entitled “Democracy, Like Revolution, is Unattainable Without Women.”

Wayne Barnes,professor of law, placed his article, “Render Unto Rawls: Law, Gospel and the Evangelical Fallacy,” with the University of Florida Journal of Law and Public.

Mark Burge, associate professor of law, had his article, “Stare Decisis and Statutory Interpretation in an Age of Outsourcing: Are Our Students Ready to Play Judge Yet?” accepted for fall 2013 publication in the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution.

Celestina Contreras, Law Clinic professor, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. Professor Contreras will help oversee the policies and procedures of Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas which provides free civil legal services to eligible low income residents in 114 counties, the fifth largest legal aid program in the nation.

Gabriel Eckstein, professor of law, served as judge for graduate students’ poster presentations on water research, and as a panelist for “Let’s Talk About Water,” a discussion panel commenting on the documentary Last Call at the Oasis, Texas A&M University Water Management and Hydrological Science Program, College Station, Texas, April 24, 2013.

• Professor Eckstein was program moderator for “The Future of Energy: The European and American Approaches,” featuring Dr. Götz Reichert of the Center for European Policy, based in Freiburg, Germany, and law professor Gina Warren of Texas Wesleyan University, Texas Wesleyan School of Law, April 22, 2013.
•  Professor Eckstein was invited to lead a UNESCO team to draft statutes for a new ground water commission under the auspices of the African Ministers’ Council on Water.
• Professor Eckstein was interviewed by RigZone Magazine, an oil and gas magazine, on new rules for recycling fracking water that were recently adopted by the Texas Railroad Commission, as well as legislation being proposed in the Texas legislature that would mandate recycling of fracking water. The article,“Legislation Targets Mandates for Water Recycling in Oil, Gas Industry” by Karen Boman, was published April 15, 2013.
• Professor Eckstein has been invited to give a presentation on the nexus between water scarcity and energy reliability at a University of Richmond Law Review symposium on the water-energy nexus, Richmond, Va., Oct.18, 2013.

Michael Green, professor of law, has been invited to speak at the Seventh Annual American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Section program in New Orleans, La. on Friday, Nov. 8, 2013, as part of a panel on “Determining When the Attorney-Client Privilege and Work Product Doctrine Apply to Internal Communications.”

Charlotte Hughart, director of the Law Clinic, was appointed and served as a group leader for the American Association of Law Schools’Annual Clinical Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from April 28-May 1, 2013.

Dennis Kelly, associate professor of law, spoke at the Business Etiquette Dinner at Texas Wesleyan School of Law on April 4, 2013. The dinner was sponsored by Phi Alpha Delta International Legal Fraternity.

Milan Markovic, associate professor of law, participated in an online symposium concerning the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. The symposium was hosted by the leading international law blog, Opinio Juris. Professor Markovic’s contribution appeared on April 24, 2013, and is titled “Settlement, Discovery,and Kiobel.”

Laura McKinnon, public services librarian, presented,“Incorporating Cloud Computing and Mobile Apps in your Law Library,” at the Southwestern Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting, in Phoenix, Ariz.,April 5, 2013.

• Professor Mulvaney presented two lectures at Haverford College on April 18, 2013. In the first, he guest-lectured in Professor Vladimir Kontorovich’s Law and Economics class on “The Economics of Takings Law.” In the second, “An Introduction to Progressive Property,” he presented a vision of property alternative to the one he discussed in the first lecture. The College’s Department of Economics and Magill Library sponsored the public lecture in conjunction with the College’s “Young Academic Alumni Lecture Series.”
• Professor Mulvaney moderated a panel entitled “The Evolution of Takings” at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Association for Law, Property and Society at the University of Minnesota Law School, April 27, 2013. 
• Professor Mulvaney was elected 1L Professor of the Year for the 2012-2013 academic term by the 1L students at Texas Wesleyan School of Law.

John Murphy, associate professor of law,presented “A Sense of Style: Learning to Love the MOUSe” at the “Exceptional Legal Writing Conference” held April 26, 2013, at the State  Bar of Texas headquarters in Austin.

Professor Murphy was elected 1L Legal Writing Professor of the Year for the 2012-2013 academic term by the 1L students at Texas Wesleyan School of Law.