The St. Mary’s Law Journal produces two publications each year, the St. Mary’s Law Journal and the St. Mary’s Journal on Legal Malpractice and Ethics. Over the past three decades the St. Mary's Law Journal has achieved a high level of distinction. Many alumni of the St. Mary's Law Journal are now judges and senior partners in important law firms.

St. Mary's Law Journal Bylaws

Contact information:
St. Mary's Law Journal
St. Mary's University
One Camino Santa Maria
San Antonio, Texas 78228
External site: www.stmaryslawjournal.org
Phone: 210.436.3525
Fax: 210.436.3756

 

2013 Symposium

The St. Mary’s Law Journal 12th Annual Symposium on Legal Malpractice and Ethics is scheduled for March 1, 2013. Articles from this symposium will be published in the third volume of the St. Mary’s Journal on Legal Malpractice and Ethics. The symposium features practical issues lawyers and judges face daily and in-depth analysis of current legal malpractice and ethics topics. The agenda is below. Online registration is open.
Registration form

2013ljbrochure

Topics and Speakers

The Failed Gatekeeper and the “Equally Guilty” Client

Kevin Michels is the J. Donald and Va Lena Scarpelli Curran Faculty Chair in Legal Ethics and Professionalism and Visiting Associate Professor at Gonzaga University Law School. He has authored articles in numerous law reviews and is the author of New Jersey Attorney Ethics, a treatise frequently cited by New Jersey courts. Prior to joining academia, Professor Michels practiced law for twenty years. He received his J.D. from Rutgers Law School-Newark, where he was Research Editor of the Rutgers Law Review. He clerked for Justice Clifford of the New Jersey Supreme Court; served on the New Jersey Supreme Court Commission on the Rules of Professional Conduct; is an elected member of the American Law Institute; and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America for Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law.

The Accidental Lawyer: A Law and Economics Perspective on Inadvertent Waiver

Ido Baum is Assistant Professor of Law and director of the inter-disciplinary studies program at the Striks School of Law, College of Management, Israel. His teaching and research focuses on procedural law, economics, securities law, and media law. He earned his doctoral degree, summa cum laude, from the Institute for Law and Economics at Hamburg University, Germany. He has LL.M. degrees from the Erasmus European master program and Tel Aviv University. Professor Baum was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley Boalt Hall and at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. His international experience includes working for the Zurich-based tribunal resolving claims to pre-WWII Swiss bank accounts held by the United States. In addition, Professor Baum is the leading legal publicist in his country, and has served as the spokesperson of the Israeli Ministry of Justice and as the assistant of the Attorney General.

The Advent of Local Lobby Restrictions and Its Legal and Ethical Consequences for Attorneys

Ross Fischer is an attorney with the law firm of Denton, Navarro, Rocha & Bernal in Austin where he advises clients—including municipalities and other political subdivisions, officeholders, candidates, law firms, and private corporations—on issues involving ethics compliance. Fischer’s career has hovered at the intersection of professional ethics and local government law. He has been the Chairman of the Texas Ethics Commission, which regulates ethics laws in the political process, including campaign law, candidates for office, officeholders, and lobbyists; Assistant Chief Disciplinary Counsel for the State Bar of Texas, where he prosecuted ethics violations throughout the state; and the elected Kendall County Attorney, where he served as both the county’s civil advisor misdemeanor prosecutor. Fischer is an honors graduate of St. Edward’s University and a graduate of the University of Texas Law School. A graduate of Trinity University and the University of Texas School of Law, Jack Gullahorn maintains a consulting practice for clients interested in complicated public policy issues and has a legal practice focused on individual and corporate ethics, lobbying, and political legal compliance. He serves as President and General Counsel of the Professional Advocacy Association of Texas (PAAT), a professional association for registered lobbyists in Texas. Gullahorn’s background includes serving as the head of the State Public Law and Policy Section for Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld and as the senior Managing Director in charge of the development of Texas public policy advocacy efforts for the clients of Public Strategies, Inc. (PSI). He also served as the Executive Assistant to the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Billy Clayton.

A Scout is Trustworthy”: Applying Virtue Ethics to Lawyer Professionalism

Justice Jeff Brown has served on the Fourteenth Court of Appeals since 2007. From 2001 to 2007, he was judge of the 55th District Court. Justice Brown earned his B.A. from the University of Texas and his law degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Houston. He then worked as a law clerk for Justices Jack Hightower and Greg Abbott on the Supreme Court of Texas before practicing civil trial law at Baker Botts in Houston. Justice Brown was named Outstanding Young Lawyer of Texas by the Texas Young Lawyers Association in 2006 and Appellate Judge of the Year by the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists in 2011. He is co-author of the Texas Rules of Evidence Handbook. An Eagle Scout, Justice Brown is an active leader in the Boy Scouts of America. He lives in Houston with Susannah, his wife of 20 years, and their three children.

Recent Developments: Issues of Interest in Legal Malpractice and Professionalism

Kathy Stephens is an attorney at Clemens & Spencer in San Antonio, where her practice includes civil litigation and appeals. Stephens was a briefing attorney for Justice Phylis Speedlin in the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio prior to entering private practice. She also previously interned for the Honorable Fred Biery, United States District Judge in the Western District of Texas. Stephens is a member of the San Antonio Bar Association, Bexar County Women’s Bar Association, Federal Bar Association, Texas Association of Defense Counsel, and Texas’s Defense Research Institute. She was named a Texas Super Lawyer Rising Star by Texas Monthly magazine in 2007 and 2008 and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. Stephens was the Symposium Editor of the St. Mary’s Law Journal from 2003-2004. She is married to Dan Stephens and is the mother of two young daughters.

The Litigation Privilege in Texas

Sam Johnson graduated from Baylor University, summa cum laude, in 1984, where he was in Phi Beta Kappa and selected as the Truman Scholar for Texas in 1983. Johnson received his J.D. with High Honors from the University of Texas Law School. He was a member of Chancellors, the Texas Law Review, and Order of the Coif and served as teaching quizmaster. After law school, Johnson clerked for District Judge Sydney A. Fitzwater of the Northern District of Texas. He has been with Scott, Douglass & McConnico since 1988. He began defending numerous officer and director lawsuits and legal malpractice lawsuits arising out of the massive Savings and Loan crisis in the mid-1980s. Since then, he has been involved in defending over 150 legal malpractice cases. Today, his practice continues to center on complex business litigation and legal malpractice defense work. Johnson has consistently been listed in the Best Lawyers in America and as a Texas Monthly Super Lawyer. Johnson was an adjunct professor at the University of Texas Law School. He has made at least a hundred CLE presentations on numerous topics.

Walking the Ethical Tight Rope in the Use of Social Media

John Browning is the founding partner of the Dallas office of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, where he handles employment law, intellectual property, commercial cases, defense of products liability, professional liability, media law, and general negligence matters. Browning received his B.A. with general and departmental honors from Rutgers University in 1986, where he was a National Merit Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. from the University of Texas Law School in 1989. He is the author of The Lawyer’s Guide to Social Networking: Understanding Social Media’s Impact on the Law, as well as two forthcoming books on social media and the law. He has been quoted as a leading authority on social media and the law by The New York Times, TIME, The National Law Journal, Law 360, and Inside Counsel magazine and is a recurring legal commentator for the NBC and FOX news stations in Dallas.

Regulating the Behavior of Lawyers in Mass Individual Representations: A Call for Reform

Richard Zitrin is Lecturer in Law at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, and founder and first director of the Center for Applied Legal Ethics at the University of San Francisco. After serving as a partner in his own firm, where he tried over 50 cases ranging from products liability to murder, he is now Of Counsel to the San Francisco firm of Carlson, Calladine & Peterson. He is a California State Bar Certified Specialist in legal malpractice. His current principal practice is litigating and advising on a wide range of attorney conduct issues. Zitrin has co-authored several books on legal ethics, including Legal Ethics in the Practice of Law and the trade book The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer, recently translated into three languages. In addition to academic work, Mr. Zitrin writes a current column for American Law Media and op-eds for general circulation media. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and New York University School of Law.

Brochure

Top Ranking

A rolling seven-year survey of state and federal court decisions recognizes the St. Mary’s Law Journal as one of the most frequently cited law reviews in the United States. The survey is published by Washington and Lee University and ranks the St. Mary’s Law Journal as the 10th most cited law review in 2009. Considering that there are 1,586 law reviews included in the ranking, the St. Mary’s Law Journal’s apex position speaks volumes about the level of dedication and professionalism put forth by its student members. The ranking is also a direct testament to the Journal’s goal of providing the judiciary and the legal community with relevant, well-written legal scholarship.

Widely Influential

Over the last ten years, the St. Mary’s Law Journal has been cited by the supreme courts of twenty-four states, with the most recent citation coming from the Illinois Supreme Court on June 19, 2008. Six of the citations by the state supreme courts have been to comments written by students on the St. Mary’s Law Journal. In addition to the numerous citations by state supreme courts, during that same time period the St. Mary’s Law Journal was also cited by United States Courts of Appeals on fifteen different occasions. A breakdown of the citations by circuit courts shows that the Second Circuit cited the St. Mary’s Law Journal four times over the last ten years, the Third Circuit cited the Journal once, the Fourth Circuit cited the Journal in a dissent, the Fifth Circuit cited the Journal six times (most recently in an unpublished opinion on May 30, 2008), the Seventh Circuit cited the Journal twice, and the Ninth Circuit cited the Journal three times. The frequency of citations by federal appellate courts reinforces the Journal’s longstanding belief that publishing quality legal scholarship will assist in understanding and administering the law. The St. Mary’s Law Journal has also been cited by the United States Supreme Court on three separate occasions. Justice Powell cited the Journal in 1975, Justice Marshall cited the Journal in 1979, and most recently in 2006, the St. Mary’s Law Journal was cited by Justice Thomas.

Award-Winning

The St. Mary’s Law Journal has won the Texas Bar Foundation’s Outstanding Article Award on several occasions, including twice recently. In 1999, the Journal also won the best article award from the state bar Labor and Employment Section.

Respected

In August 2002, the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court relied upon a student-written work in deciding a case involving police use of stun belts. Chief Justice Ronald George wrote, “The St. Mary’s Law Journal comment cited by the Court of Appeal is a lengthy and well- researched article that has been cited in a number of prior judicial decisions.” In April 2003, the Texas Court of Appeals cited Robert J. Kramer’s (class of 2003) authoritative review of the Texas Arbitration Act as the basis for deciding legal malpractice issues before the court. In November 2003, the Texas Court of Appeals cited the work of Daniel M. Martinez (class of 2004) in deciding whether insurance companies can provide representation to insureds by using in-house counsel without violating the prohibition against unauthorized practice of law. In June 2006, Justice Clarence Thomas of the United States Supreme Court cited an address by former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist that the St. Mary’s Law Journal published in Volume 21. Additionally, in May 2008, a panel in the United State Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit relied on Heather Harrison Volik’s article addressing the classification of the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle as a crime of violence when urging an en banc reversal of circuit precedent.

Prestigious

Among the authors who have published in the St. Mary’s Law Journal are the Honorable William H. Rehnquist, former Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court; the Honorable Carla Hills, then a member of the Cabinet; Father F. Darin, S.J., a former member of the House Watergate Committee; Broadus A. Spivey, President of the State Bar of Texas; and numerous Justices of the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

Board and Staff

Executive Board
Editor in Chief	CHARLES EPPS IPOCK
Executive Editor	LAUREN A. VALKENAAR
Research/Articles Editor	ELIZABETH R. KOPECKI
Solicitation/Articles Editor	MALERIE T. ANDERSON
Symposium Editor	SUSAN J. STAHLMAN
Articles Editor	F. PARKS BROWN
Articles Editor	ISAAC C. TA
Comment Editor	KATIE A. DLUHOS
Comment Editor	AMANDA C. FINN
Comment Editor	COLLEEN V. LISOWSKI
Comment Editor	CHRISSY L. SCHWENNSEN

Sr. Associate Editors
GUILLERMO F. BENAVIDES	MATT BLYTH
HENRY W. FINCK III	ANDREW E. JONES IV
JACLYN R. PARGAS
Associate Editors
JAMIE M. BAILEY	DREW DARNELL
COREY D. STEWART	KINZIE R. JOHNSON
WREN STUMP	ANTHONY RENE DE LA O
ANGIE ROBERTS-HUCKABY	URIEL TUCK
ABBIGAIL N. SMITH
Staff Writers
TAYLOR BEAVER	PABLO BENAVIDES
SUMMER BRUINGTON	BYRON BURKETT
VICTOR CAMPOS	CHRISTOPHER CHAFFEE
WARREN CRAIG	AARON CULP
DANTE DOMINGUEZ	KIMBERLY FORD
SANDRA GARANT	ELIZABETH GERMANO
REBECCA GORHAM	JOHN GRISSOM
PAUL HANNA	STEPHEN HEBERT
SEAN HENRICKSEN	JACLYN KERBOW
MATTHEW LEAL	SARAH ANNE LISHMAN
STEPHEN LUXTON	SIDNEY MANDELLA
JAMES MASON	KYLE McCARDLE
SCOTT McCARTY	TIM MILLER
MALLORY MYERS	KENT NINOMIYA
JASON NITZ	LAUREN PARKER
DENA RICHARDSON	ALYSSA SAENZ
PAIGE THOMAS	ADAM WHEELER
WILLIAM WHITE	LEIGH ANN WOITENA
ZACHARY ZUREK
Faculty Advisory Committee
VINCENT R. JOHNSON, Chair
ROBERT H. HU	DORIE KLEIN
CHENGLIN LIU	COLIN MARKS
CHAD POMEROY	WILLY E. RICE
JOHN SCHMOLESKY	L. WAYNE SCOTT
JOHN TEETER
Business Manager
RENEE HIGGINS

Board Member, National Conference of Law Reviews

Submissions

The Journal welcomes the submission of unsolicited manuscripts. Submissions must be typed and doubled-spaced with footnotes at the end of the article. All citations must conform to A Uniform System of Citation (18th ed. 2005). Manuscripts should be addressed to Solicitations Editor. We regret that manuscripts cannot be returned except upon receipt of postage and handling fees of $2.00 for third class or $3.00 for first class. Submissions to the St. Mary’s Law Journal may be emailed to stmljsolicitations@stmarytx.edu. Submissions to the St. Mary’s Journal on Legal Malpractice and Ethics may be emailed to jlegalmalethics@stmarytx.edu.

Subscriptions

The St. Mary's Law Journal (USPS 992540) is published quarterly by the students of St. Mary's University School of Law. Volume 44 is $40.00; single issues available at $8.50, symposium issue, the newest publication of the St. Mary’s Law Journal, referred to as the St. Mary’s Journal on Legal Malpractice and Ethics, Volume 3, at $15.00. Reprints of selected articles, comments and notes are also available from the Journal. Texas residents add 8.125% sales tax. Second class postage paid at San Antonio, Texas, and at additional mailing offices. Subscriptions to the St. Mary's Law Journal are considered to be continuous and, an absent receipt of notice to the contrary, will be automatically renewed each year. Issues prior to Volume 27 are available from William S. Hein & Co., 1285 Main St., Buffalo, N.Y. 14209, (800)828-7571.

Communications

All communications concerning subscription or otherwise should be addressed to St. Mary's University School of Law, St. Mary's Law Journal, One Camino Santa Maria, San Antonio, Texas 78228-8604. Telephone: (210) 436-3525. POSTMASTER: Send Address changes to St. Mary's University School of Law, St. Mary's Law Journal, One Camino Santa Maria, San Antonio, Texas 78228-8604. Questions concerning subscription or otherwise may be emailed to lawjournal@stmarytx.edu.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the St. Mary's Law Journal, its editors and staff, the St. Mary's University School of Law, or St. Mary's University.