Spring 2002 - The University of Texas at Austin

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N O T E W O R T H Y HE FRIENDS OF SEN. Lloyd M. Bentsen, ’42, donated $1 million to fund a chair in his name. The chair’s income will be used to attract and retain outstanding teachers and scholars. In selecting a holder, the dean will consider outstanding members of the current faculty or use the position to attract a leading faculty member outside the University. Bentsen was one of the most pow- 48 UTLAW Spring 2002 Lloyd M. Bentsen B E N T S E N C H A I R E S T A B L I S H E D T Bentsen received a law degree from the Law School in 1942. erful members of the U.S. Senate, where he served from 1971 until his appointment as Secretary of the Treasury in 1993. He began his career in public service as a Texas county judge and went on to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1988, he was the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President of the United States. Bentsen received his law degree in 1942, and then volunteered for the Army. He flew combat missions from southern Italy with the 449th Bomb Group. At age 23, he C O U R TESY OF LLOYD BENTSEN was promoted to major and a squadron commander. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the Army Air Corps’—now the Air Force’s—highest commendations for valor. He was also awarded the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. The medal and each subsequent cluster represents specific campaigns for which he was decorated. He was promoted to colonel in the Air Force Reserves before completing his military service. He joined the firm of Verner Liipfert Bernhard McPherson and Hand as a shareholder in February 1995. Bentsen received the Law School’s 2001 Lifetime Achievement Award in April. BRIEFS UT Law’s Roy Mersky and Alex Albright, ’80, brunched with First Lady Laura Bush at the White House on Sept. 9 to celebrate the successful conclusion of the National Book Festival. The festival is patterned on the Texas Book Festival, founded by Laura Bush, then Texas’ first lady. Mersky is a member of the Texas Book Festival’s advisory committee; Albright serves on its executive committee. Albright and Mersky in D.C. with Laura Bush after the National Book Festival. C O U RTESY WHITE HOUSE PHOTOGRAPAHY Gregory Coleman and Carolyn Mauzy Family law attorney Catherine Mauzy, ’87, has a unique interest in the outcome of a Texas Supreme Court case—Bost v. Low Income Women of Texas—involving the state’s funding restriction on “medically necessary” abortions for poor women. In addition to serving as counsel to the party that brought the suit, Mauzy is the daughter of the late Oscar H. Mauzy, ’52, a former Texas Supreme Court justice and Texas
BasilMarkesinis FIRST FOREIGNER TO DELIVER A PUBLIC LECTURE AT FRENCH COURT O N NOV. 15, PROFESSOR BASIL Markesinis became the first foreigner to give a public lecture at the highest French court, the Cour de Cassation, in Paris. The lecture, “Unity or Division: The Search for Similarities in Contemporary European Law,” was attended by 567 top judges, civil servants, professors, and ministers. In his speech, Markesinis linked the need to find a methodology for comparing systems and using each country’s experience by examining litigated situations. By focusing on specifics, he said, “One realizes that the problems are the same and that the solutions tend to be similar or analogous. If and when they are not, it’s because the problem confronting the lawyer is, at its core, a philosophical, moral, economic or political one, often incapable of a right answer or even one answer only. But at that stage one realizes that the problem is no longer French, English, or American, Christian, Jewish or Muslim, but a universal one and, what is more, one to which lawyers alone cannot supply the solution. The search for an answer requires an interdisciplinary effort, and all that the lawyer state senator who co-sponsored the 30-year-old Texas Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Mauzy says before her father died, he requested his headstone list his three favorite achievements, including the ERA. “It makes me realize what an important contribution he made, particularly to the lives of women,” says Mauzy. Now she is wielding the ERA, arguing that Texas Medicaid sexually discriminates by applying a higher eligibility standard to a health service sought only by women. COURTESY COUR DE CASSATION Texas law allows only those medical services for the poor that the federal government subsidizes, incorporating the Hyde Amendment, which limits federal funds to aborting pregnancy resulting from rape and incest and when it endangers the woman’s life, not only her health. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin held the Texas Medicaid funding scheme “effects an impermissible form of sex discrimination against pregnant women.” Texas Attorney General John Cornyn appealed to the Supreme Court in November, contending that the Texas Medicaid law is neutral on its face, predates the abortions-rights controversy, and should not have to meet a “compelling state interest” test because the funding does is, in the end, formulate in legal terms the solution that society has chosen to adopt.” Markesinis is the world’s leading English-language authority on European private law. In addition to holding the Jamail Regents Chair in Law and directing UT Law’s Institute of Transnational Studies, he is a member of the American Law Institute, and an elected Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Belgian Academy, the Academy of Athens, and the Royal Dutch Academy. His work has been honored with the highest national awards from the presidents of Germany, Greece, Italy, and France and from the Queen of England. He holds a joint appointment at UT and the University College London. Markesinis: “Different outcomes in similar cases reflect profound social differences.” limitation doesn’t harm all women. “To make a claim under the ERA, you’ve got to demonstrate that a legislature has acted with discriminatory intent,” says Gregory Coleman, ’92, an appellate attorney who wrote the state’s brief as Solicitor General. “You can’t ascribe discriminatory intent to that statute.” “Even if you believe the state intended to hinder abortion funding, that would be its prerogative,” Coleman adds. A decision in the high-profile case is expected this spring. Catherine Mauzy,’87 Gregory Coleman,’92 S p r i ng 2002 UTLAW 49
Page 1 and 2: 2002 THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY
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Page 63 and 64: CALENDAR OF UPCOMING CLE EVENTS
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Page 67 and 68: The Safest Large Bank in Texas* Sup

Spring 2002 - The University of Texas at Austin

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