Texas A&M School of Law Dean Robert B. Ahdieh recently received Downtown Fort Worth, Inc.‘s Innovation Trailblazer Award for his role in helping to inspire and encourage the creation of Texas A&M - Fort Worth, a several hundred-million dollar research and innovation campus. Construction will begin in June and comes at a key moment in the trajectory of law school.

TaxProf Blog recently posted a series that highlights the top 50 schools in five categories of the 2023 edition of Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. 

Texas A&M Law ranks first or second in Texas and lands in the top tiers nationally across all categories. 

Dean Robert B. Ahdieh has been named Vice President for Professional Schools and Programs by Texas A&M University President M. Katherine Banks. He will serve in this new position concurrently with his appointment as Dean of the School of Law and Anthony G. Buzbee Endowed Dean’s Chair.

Texas A&M Legal Clinics announce the recipients of their 2020 and 2021 awards. The legal clinics give students the opportunity to apply their skills to work on behalf of actual clients in a variety of practice areas, and the awards provide the opportunity to showcase student achievement.

Texas A&M law professor Brian Larson and public-health professors Cason Schmit and Hye-Chung Kum advise legislators and public-health professionals in the U.S. to act on the proposed Uniform Personal Data Protection Act (UPDPA), likely to be adopted July 10, 2021 by the Uniform Law Commissioners (ULC). The Act is designed to be adopted by states seeking a comprehensive data privacy statute, and it has important effects on public-health research and interventions.

The Texas A&M Law Student Bar Association (SBA) recently hosted a very successful “Spring Break Stay-Cation” for the law school’s week-long spring break. SBA is the law school’s student body government, comprised of five representatives per class year, an ABA representative, vice president and president. SBA serves the student body by encouraging academic excellence, supporting professional and personal growth and working with administration, faculty, and the community at large to advocate for student needs.

The Spring Break Stay-Cation was a week-long student challenge crafted by the 2020-2021 SBA Board. The Spring Break Stay-Cation encouraged students to skip the travel this year, and instead participate in socially distanced activities in the Fort Worth community. This event was created in order to address COVID-19 related concerns with Spring Break travel. In an attempt to limit student travel, SBA created a challenge with various activities in the Fort Worth community and at home. Students who completed the full week of activities were given a gift bag for their commitment.

The Texas A&M Office of Career Services is hosting American Bar Association President Patricia Refo and representatives from the Dallas Bar Association, Tarrant Co. Bar Association and Texas Aggie Bar Association Thursday, April 8 starting at 12:15PM via Zoom. Texas A&M Law students are encouraged to attend and observe a discussion about the importance of the bar, bar associations and bar association membership. Zoom links will be shared in the Good Bull, the weekly student e-news.

Moderator Aric Short is a law professor and the director of the Texas A&M Law professionalism and leadership program. Under his leadership, Texas A&M Law requires that all of its first-year students take a professional identity class, a mandate uncharacteristic for law schools. Event organizer Arturo Errisuriz, TAMU Law assistant dean​ for career services and bar relations, is the past chairman of the Tarrant County Bar Foundation and with his team has increased Aggie Law gold standard student employment year over year. 

Texas A&M Law advocacy competition students are international champions of the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) Nelson Mandela International Negotiation Competition. The team of 3L Maya Fitzpatrick and 2L Tyler Phillips won the competition in March. They were coached by law school adjunct Kay Elliott.

In March, Peter K. Yu, Regents Professor at Texas A&M University School of Law, joined Edward Kwakwa, assistant director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in the 10th Global Digital Encounter organized by FIDE (Legal and Business Research Foundation) and the Transatlantic Intellectual Property Academy. Professor Miriam Allena of Bocconi University in Italy moderated the event.

At the virtual encounter, which was accessible to over 600 network members and was subsequently made available online, Professor Yu explored the potential contributions of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals to the intellectual property system and the role intellectual property law and policy can play in promoting these goals. He also shared his views on the recent proposal by India and South Africa to suspend selective intellectual property obligations under the WTO TRIPS Agreement to help contain and treat COVID-19.

"It is a pleasure to join Edward and Miriam in this very timely digital encounter," said Professor Yu.

"Issues relating to intellectual property and sustainable development have never been more important. As we continue to combat COVID-19, there is also the inevitable debate about whether the intellectual property system needs adjustments during the global pandemic."

Despite challenges brought on by the pandemic, Texas A&M Law advocacy teams, under the guidance of Director of Advocacy Programs Jennifer Ellis, persevered. Kudos to the following teams:

Hofstra National Medical-Legal Trial Competition: Our team of 3Ls Jessica Gillespie, Alexia Nicoloulias and Cole Stenholm and 2L Victoria LeFleur were semi-finalists; and Jessica Gillespie received the award for Best Use of an Expert Witness in the Preliminary Rounds. The team was coach by Judge Elizabeth Berry.

National Mediator Competition: 2L Samantha Elliott placed 2^nd and 2L Bryan Berens placed 4^th.  Both students won cash prizes. They were coached by Kay Elliott.