UHLC Nota Bene

The revised fourth edition of Primer on the Texas Law of Oil and Gas by Joseph Shade has been published and is now available on the new titles shelf in the law library . This book, designed for both students and attorneys desiring an overview of Texas oil and gas law, covers ownership issues such as the rule of capture, correlative rights doctrine, oil and gas leases, title and conveyances, conservation, pooling, and contracts among other topics. The author makes a difficult and important subject that encompasses a mixture of contract and property law easy to grasp by providing enough information (arranged in outline format) for one to obtain a basic understanding of Texas oil and gas law while using examples and illustrations to help the reader to follow key concepts.  A glossary of oil and gas terms, a sample oil, gas, and mineral lease  form, and technical supplement are included in the appendices.

Today, I thought I'd discuss some cool aspects about Bloomberg Law (or BLaw ), the latest attempt to compete against the West/LexisNexis duopoly's control of online legal research. Before I begin, however, I should make some clarifications, especially considering my critique of Lexis Advance when it was first released . First of all, I have not delved too deeply into Bloomberg Law yet; accordingly, these are very superficial comments. Secondly, BLaw is not being rolled out as a replacement for a far superior Bloomberg product and, therefore, I have nothing to compare it to (other than competitor products). Similarly, because Bloomberg doesn't have an older product for me to have developed an appreciation of, I really don't have any attachment that might lead me to examine BLaw more closely and more passionately. In other words, although I am in favor of more competition in the online legal research service market, I am not emotionally invested in BLaw and don't re...

On Thursday, the Second Court of Appeals in New York found, in a 2-1 ruling, that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. Windsor v. U.S. , 12-2335-CV L, 2012 WL 4937310 (2d Cir. Oct. 18, 2012). The Court of Appeals not only agreed with the trial court that Defense of Marriage Act violated the Equal Protection Clause for want of rational basis, but went a step further than any court had before. It additionally found that “. . . homosexuals compose a class that is subject to heightened scrutiny,” and applied intermediate scrutiny to its review of the statute. Windsor at 10. The facts of the case center around plaintiff Edith Windsor, whose same-sex spouse (the couple married in Canada) died, leaving her estate to Windsor. Due to section 3 of DOMA, which limits the definitions of marriage and spouse to heterosexual couples, the Internal Revenue Service could not recognize Windsor as a spouse for purposes of federal estate tax law. Defense of Marriage Ac...

Earlier this week, the University of Houston Law Center was fortunate to have as its guest Professor Daniel Kanstroom of Boston College of Law. An expert in immigration law, he is the Director of the International Human Rights Program, and he both founded and directs the Boston College Immigration and Asylum Clinic. Speaking as the guest of the Houston Journal of International Law’s annual Fall Lecture Series, Professor Kanstroom discussed issues raised in his new book, Aftermath: Deportation Law and the New American Diaspora . Professor Michael Olivas introduced Professor Kanstroom to the audience, and mentioned the fascinating tale of Carlos Marcello, which Professor Kanstroom wrote about in his chapter “The Long, Complex, and Futile Deportation Saga of Carlos Marcello,” in Immigration Stories , a collection of narratives about leading immigration law cases. My interest piqued, I read and was amazed by Kanstroom’s description of one of the most interesting figures in American le...

It would appear that the federal government no longer loves Thomas Jefferson. That is the only conclusion I can make as a result of the roll-out of the beta version of Congress.gov , the legislative web site created to replace Thomas.loc.gov , the Library of Congress’ legislative web site.  As with everything new, Congress.gov bills itself as an improvement over Thomas.loc.gov , but not for the right reasons.   The first reason is that the new platform allows, “Simultaneously search all content across all available years.” Searching across all content for all years is a recipe for bringing back too many results and confusing the researcher. The preferred strategy is to search as narrowly as possible and expand out from there. The other improvement is that the new design will improve searching on mobile devices. I see two problems here; 1)Is this a real selling point? And 2) Why are you searching legislation on a mobile device? I can imagine you would do it if you work...

"I’m just second hand news"                                 --Fleetwood Mac In scholarly legal writing, as much as in legal practice itself, there is the law and there are the facts, the difference being that in practice the facts come along as part of the case, whereas in legal writing facts are often pieced together later. We are familiar with articles citing to newspapers, but why do we not see more citations to television news stories?   If this was a problem in the past it isn’t any more. If you are looking for a television news broadcast, it’s out there.  The leader in this area is the Vanderbilt Television NewsArchive . The Television News Archive (TNA) has been around for some time and prides itself on its extensive coverage. The TNA contains recordings of the news broadcasts of national networks start...