South Texas College of Law Annotations (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 24, No. 8, Ed. 1, April, 1996 Page: 5 of 12
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April 1996
Page 5
SBA has achieved its goals for year
By Marshall Wood
SBA president
We have made it to the
end of another school year. 1
hope everyone has enjoyed this
past year and is in the process
of preparing for their finals.
The completion of an-
other year also means the
changing of the guard for the
Student Bar Association; how-
ever, before I leave I would like
to take this opportunity to re-
flect on the accomplishments of
this year's SBA.
If you can recall the
beginning of the year, Annota-
tions published a list of our
goals for the upcoming year
which focused on five main
areas:
1) Creating new social
activities for students and im-
proving on the existing ones;
2) making a commit-
ted effort to become actively in-
volved in community service
projects;
3) improving upon
faculty and student relations;
4) becoming actively
involved in the Law Student
Division of both the American
Bar Association and the State
Bar of Texas; and
5) improving existing
academic programs and ad-
equately addressing student is-
sues.
1) Social Activitics-
This year's social activities in-
cluded twice as many atrium
parties than in the past, at least
one "Bar Review" (an off cam-
pus happy hour) every month,
the annual Halloween party
and Spring Banquet, a Chili
Cook-Off in the Fall and a Soft-
ball Tournament in the Spring,
improved football and basket-
ball intramural competition,
and a variety of student trips
ranging from skiing in Colo-
rado to going to numerous
Astros and Aeros games.
2) Community Ser-
vice-To satisfy our goal of
community involvement, the
SBA sponsored several events
benefitting various organiza-
tions in the community.
In the Fall, we spon-
sored a Habitat for Humanity
project, a Halloween party for
the children of the Houston
Area Battered Women's Cen-
ter, a charity silent auction at
our Fall Chili Cook-Off, a
charity book drive, a food
drive, we charged a can of food
or $1.00 for admission to our
annual Halloween party, and
we had 10% of all our "Bar-
Review" proceeds donated to
the charity of our choice.
In the Spring we con-
tinued with this pace by spon-
soring a charity Softball tour-
nament, volunteering at the
March of Dimes office as part
of the A.B.A.'s "Work a Day",
decorating a local retirement
home for Valentine's Day, and
taking part in this year's
WalkAmerica for March of
Dimes.
All of these activities
culminated in a total of883 vol-
unteered hours, over $4,500.00
in cash donations to various
charities, over 1450 cans of
food that was donated to the
Star of Hope Mission, and 350
books that were also donated
to the Star of Hope Mission.
3) Faculty/Student
Relations- Our efforts in this
area resulted in the formulation
of an Honor Code, based on
one developed by last year's
SBA and Professor Moore, to
help implement needed guide-
lines and procedures for deal-
ing with possible rule violations
at school.
The purpose of this
code is to allow students and
faculty to work together con-
cerning such violations. It is
currently being presented to the
faculty for approval.
4) A.B.A. and State
Bar of Texas involvement-
The SBA also wanted to in-
crease its level of involvement
and presence in both the State
Bar and the American Bar in
order to adequately represent
South Texas.
This goal was accom-
plished with flying colors as we
now have elected representa-
tives from South Texas in both
arenas.
First, concerning the
State Bar of Texas, M&rissa
Bennett Tindall was elected as
Chair of the Law Student Di-
vision of the State Bar of
Texas.
This is the highest po-
sition that a law student can
hold within the Texas Bar and
it allows Marissa to help get
South Texas' name out through
her regular meetings with the
President of the State Bar of
Texas and various other state
bar committee chairs and lead-
ers.
Second, concerning
the American Bar Association,
Chris Samuelson was elected
as the Thirteenth Circuit Gov-
ernor of the A.B.A. which
means that he will sit on the
governing board of the
A.B.A.'s Law Student Divi-
sion. In addition, the Circuit
Governor is in charge of the
A.B.A. related activities
andprograms for all the law
schools in both Texas and Loui-
siana and it will also allow
Chris to help get South Texas'
name out through national
meetings with attorneys who
are leaders in the legal commu-
nity.
5) Student Issues-
The SBA also focused their
efforts on addressing various
student issues. We addressed
the issue of turning grades in
on time by passing a resolution
and presenting it to the Dean
which resulted in all but one
grade being turned in on time
for the summer and fall terms.
We were able to get financial
aid credit vouchers in the book
store made available to all stu-
dents and not just newly en-
rolled students.
And, after numerous
complaints, we were able to get
the smoking area moved from
the front of the building to the
back of the building.
Although, at times, the
past year has been very busy
and hectic, I have thoroughly
enjoyed myself and I hope that
we have accomplished the jobs
that you elected us to do.
Next year' s SBA
President, Chris Samuelson, is
very organized and motivated
and I have no doubt that the
SBA under his leadership will
be successful.
Thank you for a great
year and good luck with your
future endeavors.
South Texas welcomes five new faculty members
By Laura Shinn
Assistant editor
Students at South
Texas will soon enjoy new ad-
ditions to the faculty. Five out-
standing professors will join
the South Texas faculty this
Fall semester.
David Goldstein hails
from New York where he has
litigated as an associate attor-
ney for the firm Weil, Gotshal
& Manges since 1992. Profes-
sor Goldstein received his J.D.,
magna cum laude from
Harvard Law School in June
1985, and his B.A. from
Cornell University majoring in
Modern European History.
Professor Goldstein's
significant cases include
American Civil Liberties
Union of Mississippi, Inc. v.
State of Mississippi, 911 F.2d
1066 (5th Cir. 1990), where he
represented a plaintiff subclass
in a dispute over public access
to illegally gathered govern-
ment files and privacy rights of
victims of the State Sover-
eignty Commission. He briefed
and argued before the Second
Circuit concerning the First
Amendment Rights of musi-
cians to perform in the New
York subway system in Carew-
Reidv. MTA, 903 F.2d 914 (2d
Cir. 1990). He also wrote a
brief to the United States Su-
preme Court on the issue of a
crime-fraud exception to the
attorney-client privilege in
United States v. Zolin. 491
U.S. 554 (1989).
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From SMU Law
School in Dallas comes Paul
McGreal. Professor McGreal
earned his B.A. in Economics
from Williams College, gradu-
ated No. 1 in his class from
SMU Law School in 1992, and
is currently an LL.M. Candi-
date at the Yale Law School.
McGreal has published on the
subjects of professional re-
sponsibility and conflicts of
laws. He currently teaches at
SMU Law School and works
for the Dallas office of Baker
& Botts, L.L.P
Francesca Ortiz cur-
rently serves as an adjunct pro-
fessor at the University of
Texas School of Law in Aus-
tin and is an Associate in the
Environmental and Trial Sec-
tions of Baker & Botts, L.L.P.
in Austin. She was born in San
Antonio, received a B.A. with
special honors in Government
from UT at Austin and earned
her J.D. at the Harvard Law
School where she also served
as the Executive Editor of the
Harvard law Review .
Professor Ortiz has
specific interests in environ-
mental law and ethics. She has
substantial experience in legal
ethics and malpractice issues
and counseling on political ac-
tion committee and lobbyist
registration, reporting, and
conduct. Ortiz has been pub-
lished numerous times in the
Texas Tech Law Review and
was awarded Best Fifth Circuit
Survey Award in 1992 for her
survey on administrative law.
Val Ricks will travel
from West Jordan, Utah to join
South Texas. Professor Ricks
earned his B.A. summa cum
laude in Philosophy with a
GPA of 3.99 at Brigham Young
University. Ricks was first in
the J. Reuben Clark Law
School at BYU class of 1992,
and served as the Executive
Editor of the BYU Law Re-
view.
Ricks has an interest-
ing background. Aside from
serving as judicial law clerk to
the Honorable Charles E.
Wiggins of the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit,
serving as a teaching assisting
at BYU's English Department,
Ricks has also assisted in mor-
tuary work as an Apprentice
Mortician.
Last, but certainly not
least, is Kevin Yamamoto from
Gainesville, Fla. Professor
Yamamoto is currently a visit-
ing professor at the University
of Florida School of Law.
Yamamoto earned his B.S. in
Psychology from the Univer-
sity of California, Davis; par-
ticipated in the Graduate Pro-
gram in Clinical Psychology
from 1987-1989 at U.S.C.;
earned his J.D. magna cum
laude from the University of
San Diego School of Law,
graduating 5th in his class; and,
received his LL.M. in Taxation
from the University of Florida
School of Law.
Yamamoto served as
the Associate Editor of the San
Diego Law Review and re-
ceived numerous honors while
in law school.
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Bankston, Mark. South Texas College of Law Annotations (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 24, No. 8, Ed. 1, April, 1996, newspaper, April 1996; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth144510/m1/5/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting South Texas College of Law.