Marisol Pérez

Practicing Faculty

Biography

Marisol L. Pérez (J.D. ’00) began practicing law in 2001 as an associate for De Mott, McChesney, Curtright & Armendáriz, L.L.P., where her primary concentration was deportation defense, Violence Against Women’s Act cases and general family immigration.

In 2004, she took a staff attorney position in the Southwest Regional Office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). She served as an immigrants’ rights attorney handling litigation and legislative matters for nine states.

While at MALDEF, Pérez participated in several lawsuits defending immigrant rights around the country.

Notably, she represented plaintiffs in the lawsuit Vicente v. Barnett, an action on behalf of 16 individuals to recover damages for injuries inflicted upon them by vigilante ranchers along the Arizona-Mexico Border. In February 2009, a civil jury found in favor of the women plaintiffs and awarded damages on their claims of assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Pérez also represented plaintiffs in a series of successful lawsuits brought forth to challenge actions of the City of Farmers Branch, the first Texas town to adopt an anti-immigrant law.

In 2010, Pérez returned to De Mott, McChesney, Curtright & Armendáriz, L.L.P. where she is a partner and handles a wide range of immigration cases for the firm. Pérez is Board Certified in immigration and nationality law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization (TBLS).


Honors and Awards

  • LULAC National President’s Community Leadership Award in 2009

Marisol Pérez

Practicing Faculty

Education

  • St. Mary’s University, J.D., 2000
  • University of Texas at San Antonio, B.A. in Political Science, 1996

License to Practice

  • Texas

Specialties and Courses

  • Immigration Law

The Hon. Xavier Rodriguez

Practicing Faculty | Distinguished Visiting Jurist-in-Residence

Biography

Xavier Rodriguez is a former Texas Supreme Court Justice and currently sits on the bench as a United States District Judge for the Western District of Texas. He was a partner in the international law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski (now known as Norton Rose Fulbright). He was board certified in labor and employment law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps and has served on the board of directors of several charitable organizations across Texas. Judge Rodriguez is a frequent speaker on continuing legal education seminars and has authored numerous articles regarding employment law, discovery, and arbitration issues. He is the editor of Essentials of E-Discovery (TexasBarBooks 2d ed. 2021). He is a member of The Sedona Conference Judicial Advisory Board, the Georgetown Advanced E-Discovery Institute Advisory Board, the EDRM Global Advisory Council, and serves as the Distinguished Visiting Jurist-in-Residence and adjunct professor of law at the St. Mary’s University School of Law. He is a Past Chair of the State Bar of Texas Litigation Section, Past Chair of the State Bar of Texas Labor and Employment Law Section and Past Chair of the State Bar of Texas Continuing Legal Education Committee.


Honors and Awards

  • Member, American Law Institute
  • Fellow, American Bar Foundation
  • Fellow, Texas Bar Foundation
  • State Bar of Texas Litigation Section, Past Chair
  • State Bar of Texas Labor and Employment Law Section, Past Chair
  • State Bar of Texas Continuing Legal Education Committee, Past Chair
  • Texas Bar Foundation’s Samuel Pessarra Outstanding Jurist Award, 2021
  • TexasBarCLE’s Pat Nester Innovation in Professional Development Award, 2021
  • State Bar of Texas Gene Cavin Award for Excellence in CLE, 2017
  • Rosewood Gavel Award for Outstanding Judicial Service, 2011

Publications

Books

  • Essentials of E-Discovery, Xavier Rodriguez ed. (2d Ed. TexasBarBooks 2021)
  • Essentials of E-Discovery, Xavier Rodriguez ed. (TexasBarBooks 2014)
  • Written Employment Contracts, Texas Employment Law (co-author) (James Publishing, Inc.) (various editions all prior to 2001)
  • Independent Contractors, Defense Research Institute Employment Law Basics (author) (various editions all prior to 2001)
  • Texas Legal Assistant Handbook, member, Editorial Advisory Board (James Publishing, Inc.) (Various editions all prior to 2001)
  • The Employment At-Will Doctrine, TAB Employment Law Handbook (author) (various editions all prior to 2001)

Shorter Works

  • The Sedona Conference Cooperation Proclamation: Resources for the Judiciary, Third Edition (June 2020). Judicial Reviewer and author of various portions of this publication.
  • Fifth Circuit Criminal Pattern Jury Instructions (Thompson Reuters 2015) (Chair of the Committee on Criminal Pattern Jury Instructions and co-author of various instructions)
  • Fifth Circuit Criminal Pattern Jury Instructions (Thompson Reuters 2012) (Member of the Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions and co-author of various instructions)
  • Employment Discrimination Law, EEOC Administrative Process, 2000 Cumulative Supplement (contributor) (Bureau of National Affairs)

Articles

  • Xavier Rodriguez, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Practice of Law in Texas, Vol. 63 S. Tex. L. Rev. (Fall 2023)
  • Xavier Rodriguez, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Practice of Law, 24 Sedona Conf. J. 783 (2023)
  • Anthony P. Ng and Xavier Rodriguez, Basic Electronic Discovery (Practicum Press 2023)
  • Xavier Rodriguez, Discovery in Criminal Cases: New Fed. Crim. P. 16.1 is insufficient to address the amount of data collected and should be produced – A Proposal for a Rule 16.2 (Duke Univ., Bolch Judicial Institute 2023)
  • Xavier Rodriguez, Examining Heslin and Lewis v. Infowars and Alex Jones, Circuits, State Bar of Texas Computer & Technology Section (Jan. 2023)
  • Xavier Rodriguez, My Responses to these Discovery Requests were Reasonable, Right? Navigating Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g)(1), Vol. 101 (Winter 2022), The Advocate, State Bar of Texas Litigation Section
  • Xavier Rodriguez & Anthony Ng, Sanctions under the Civil Rules of Procedure (2022), News for the Bar, State Bar of Texas Litigation Section
  • Xavier Rodriguez, Ensuring a Fair Cross-Section of the Community in the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Lawyer (November/December 2021)
  • Xavier Rodriguez, When Machines Can be a Judge, Law360’s Expert Analysis Series. A review of Katherine Bolan Forrest’s “When Machines Can Be Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Justice in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.” (Law360, May 19, 2021 at https://www.law360.com/cybersecurity-privacy/articles/1385565
  • Essentials of E-Discovery, Xavier Rodriguez ed. (2d Ed. TexasBarBooks 2021)
  • Xavier Rodriguez, A Profile of Roy R. Barrera, Sr, Journal of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society (Vol. 10, No. 2 Winter 2021)
  • Xavier Rodriguez, The Attempted Integration of Mansfield, Texas, Nathaniel Jackson, et al v. O.C. Rawdon, a Necessary Precursor to Little Rock, Journal of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society (Vol. 10, No. 1 Fall 2020)
  • Xavier Rodriguez & Anthony Ng, Sanctions under the Civil Rules of Procedure (2022), News for the Bar, State Bar of Texas Litigation Section
  • Xavier Rodriguez, Ensuring a Fair Cross-Section of the Community in the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Lawyer (November/December 2021)
  • Xavier Rodriguez & Stephen Malouf: Technology in the Courtroom: Demonstratives. The Advocate, Vol. 90, Spring 2020
  • Xavier Rodriguez & James Wes Christian, Making a Plan: Select discovery issues. 82 Tex. Bar J. 174, March 2019
  • Xavier Rodriguez & David L. Horan, Meta-Discovery: Allegations of an Incomplete Document Production, 19 Sedona Conf. J. 745 (2018)
  • Steven S. Gensler & Xavier Rodriguez, Discovery: Form Fights: Battles over Content and Proportionality, ABA Pretrial Practice & Discovery, Spring 2018
  • Steven S. Gensler & Xavier Rodriguez, Discovery: What the form are we fighting for? 80 Tex. Bar J. 774, December 2017
  • Xavier Rodriguez, Brookshire Brothers: Cleanup on Aisle 9. The Current Messy State of Spoliation Law. 46 St. Mary’s Law Journal 447 (2015)
  • Xavier Rodriguez, New Federal Court Rules: Listen, Be Prompt, Be Prepared, No Throwing a Fit. San Antonio Lawyer (May-June 2015)
  • Essentials of E-Discovery, Xavier Rodriguez ed. (TexasBarBooks 2014)
  • Xavier Rodriguez, The Decline of Civil Jury Trials: A Positive Development, Myth, or the End of Justice as We Now Know It? 45 St. Mary’s Law Journal 333 (2014)
  • Paralegal Overtime: Yes, No or Maybe? American Bar Association GP Solo, Vol. 19, No.1, January/February 2002
  • Supreme Court Issues New Guidelines, American Lawyer Media, October 2, 2000
  • Have Discrimination Cases Gotten More Difficult? Texas Lawyer, September 27, 2000
  • Paralegal Overtime: Yes, No or Maybe? 63 Tex. Bar J. 266, March 2000
  • Developments in the Substantive Law: Employment Law, Texas Lawyer, December 20, 1999

Presentations

  • Frequent speaker at Continuing Legal Education presentations throughout the United States and overseas. In this capacity he has written numerous CLE articles discussing discovery, civil procedure, employment law, and the U.S. federal courts.
  • Delivered presentations and presented articles on more than 450 occasions throughout Texas, United States and Europe. 

The Hon. Xavier Rodriguez

Practicing Faculty | Distinguished Visiting Jurist-in-Residence

Education

  • L.L.M. in Judicial Studies, Duke University, 2023
  • J.D., The University of Texas at Austin School of Law, 1987
  • M. Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin, 1987
  • B.A., Harvard University, 1983

License to Practice

  • Texas

Specialties and Courses

  • E-Discovery
  • Federal Courts
  • Employment Law
  • AI

Vincent R. Johnson

Professor Emeritus of Law

Biography

Vincent R. Johnson is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the St. Mary’s University School of Law. During his 43 years of service at St. Mary’s Law, he taught and wrote in the areas of torts, professional responsibility, legal malpractice, government ethics, international law, and comparative law.

He was Interim Dean and Charles E. Cantú Distinguished Professor of Law in 2019-2020.

Johnson served as a Fulbright Scholar in Burma, China and Romania and as a law clerk for judges at the New York Court of Appeals and the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago.

As a Supreme Court Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, he assisted Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist with his duties as head of the federal judiciary. Johnson received the Administration of Justice Award from the Supreme Court Fellows Alumni Association at a dinner attended by the current Chief Justice, John Roberts.

Johnson is a prolific scholar. His articles have been cited in more than 210 law reviews, 65 federal and state court decisions, and various treatises. Johnson’s books have been assigned as required reading at more than forty American law schools.

Professor Johnson is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, a national honor conferred by the Boy Scouts of America. He was made a member of the Order of Art and Culture by the City of Innsbruck, Austria.

Professor Johnson received his J.D. from the University of Notre Dame, an LL.M from Yale University, and an LL.M. from the London School of Economics. He has taught law and lectured in 12 countries.

For work on ethics reform, Professor Johnson received a Presidential Citation, “for truly outstanding service to the legal profession of Texas,” from the president of the State Bar of Texas, June 2021.


Organizations

  • Member, Committee on Disciplinary Rules and Referenda, 2017 to Present (Appointed by the Supreme Court of Texas)
  • Member, American Law Institute
  • Member, Executive Committee of the Professional Responsibility Section of the Association of American Law Schools, 2019 to 2022
  • Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Carolina Academic Press (1995-present)
  • Commissioner, Judicial Fellows Commission (1993-99)
  • 1997-1999, Chair, Mayor of San Antonio’s Taskforce on Ethics in Government (the work of which led to the adoption of a new ethics code governing the city’s 11,000 officials and employees)
  • 1989-2001, Director of the St. Mary’s University Institute on World Legal Problems, a summer program on international and comparative law conducted annually at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Participants included five Justices of the United States Supreme Court, students from 90 American law schools and more than 40 visiting professors from Austria, China, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Russia and the United States.
  • San Antonio Bar Foundation
  • Texas Bar Foundation
  • American Bar Foundation
  • State Bar of Texas
  • San Antonio Bar Association
  • American Bar Association
  • Fulbright Association
  • Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers

Publications

Books

  • Legal Malpractice Law: Problems and Prevention (W. Acad. Publ’g ed., 3d ed. 2021) with Susan Saab Fortney.
  • Teacher’s Manual for Legal Malpractice Law: Problems and Prevention (W. Acad. Publ’g eds., 3d ed. 2021) with Susan Saab Fortney.
  • Legal Ethics, Professional Responsibility and the Legal Profession (West Academic Press 2018) (Hornbook Series, with Sisk et al.)
  • Advanced Tort Law:  A Problem Approach, 3d ed. (Carolina Academic Press 2020)
  • Studies in American Tort Law7th ed. (Carolina Academic Press, 2022), with Liu.
  • A Concise Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers (ALI 2007) co-edited with Fortney.
  • Mastering Torts, 7th ed. (Carolina Academic Press, 2022). The fifth edition was published in Chinese by China Renmin University Press in 2017.
  • Legal Malpractice Law in a Nutshell, 3d ed. (West Acad. Publ’g 2021).
  • Teaching Torts, 7th ed. (Carolina Academic Press, 2022), with Liu.

Articles in a Periodical

Book reviews


Vincent R. Johnson

Professor Emeritus of Law

Contact Information

Email Vincent R. Johnson

Education

  • LL.M, London School of Economics, 2016
  • LL.D., St. Vincent College, 1991
  • LL.M., Yale University, 1979
  • J.D., University of Notre Dame, 1978
  • B.A., St. Vincent College (Pa.), 1975

License to Practice

  • Texas (active status)
  • Pennsylvania (non resident, inactive status)

Specialties and Courses

  • Tort law
  • Legal ethics
  • Ethics in Government
  • Comparative Law
  • International Business Transactions
  • Legal malpractice

Roberto Rondero de Mosier

Practicing Faculty

Biography

Roberto “R.C.” Rondero de Mosier provides expert counsel to emerging high-growth businesses and their entrepreneurs and investors. R.C. also serves as Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of The Gober Group, where he manages firm operations and client services.

Prior to entering the legal profession, R.C. graduated from Stanford University in Palo Alto and entered the booming start-up sector. R.C.’s knowledge of business management, along with his sales background, has provided him the needed experience to help clients address both their individual and business growth needs.

Upon finishing law school, R.C. worked in the corporate sector for Thomson Reuters and worked in a division later acquired by Leeds Equity. He then founded a corporate transactional law practice, which he grew and sold within three years. As an owner of a few small business ventures and a member of the leadership of justlegal.com, R.C. continues to advise small businesses and startups across the country from multiple perspectives.

R.C. maintains consistent community involvement in Austin, having served on several nonprofit boards from Latinitas, Inc. to the Austin Symphony BATS. He currently serves on the board of The Merivis Foundation and volunteers time to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas and Austin Pets Alive. In 2015, R.C. was honored as an Austin Under 40 Awards finalist, recognizing Austin’s emerging professionals and community leaders.


Roberto Rondero de Mosier

Practicing Faculty

Education

  • St. Mary’s University, JD, 2008
  • Stanford University, BA, Communication, 2001

License to Practice

  • Texas
  • California
  • New York
  • Illinois (Inactive)

Specialties and Courses

  • Entertainment Law

Richard E. Flint

Albert Hermann Professor Emeritus of Law

Biography

Flint practiced civil litigation for 17 years, primarily in the areas of commercial litigation, insurance defense, oil and gas, and bankruptcy. As a practicing lawyer, he served as a bankruptcy trustee both under the Act and the Code for the Southern District of Texas, Corpus Christi, Division. He was active in the grievance process, serving as member of both state and federal bar grievance committees and as Chairman of the State Bar of Texas District Grievance Committee for Nueces and surrounding counties for over six years.

After his law firm experience, he became a tenured professor of the St. Mary’s University School of Law and has taught at Institute on World Legal Programs in Innsbruck, Austria, as well as in Mexico.

His published work focuses on the areas of civil procedure, pretrial procedure, bankruptcy and mortgages.


Highlights

  • Distinguished Law School Faculty Member, 2009
  • Albert Hermann Distinguished Professor of Law, 2004-Present

Publications

Books

  • Texas Civil Procedure, Imprimatur Press, 2021
  • Cases and Materials on Texas Civil Procedure, Grail & Tucker, Inc. (Publisher), 1997.
  • Cases and Materials on Texas Pretrial Procedure, Imprimatur Press (Publisher) 1998, revised yearly thereafter with Professor Wayne Scott (current version 2019 ed.).
  • Case and Materials on Texas Trial and Appellate Procedure, Imprimatur Press. (Publisher) 1998, revised yearly thereafter with Professor Wayne Scott (current version 2019 ed.).
  • Texas Cases and Materials on Real Property Security (Mortgages) (with the late M..K. Woodward and Aloysius Leopold), Imprimatur Press (Publisher) (2014 and rev’d ed. 2015).

Richard E. Flint

Albert Hermann Professor Emeritus of Law

Contact Information

Education

  • M.A., St. Mary’s University in Moral Theology, 2007
  • J.D., University of Texas, 1974 (Managing Editor, Texas Law Review)
  • Ph.D., University of Texas, 1971
  • B.A., University of Texas, 1967

License to Practice

  • Texas

Specialties and Courses

  • Property
  • Oil and Gas Law
  • Mortgages and Real Estate Financing
  • Just War Theory and Terrorism
  • Canon Law (seminar)
  • Deceptive Trade Practices
  • Contracts
  • Bankruptcy
  • Texas Pretrial Procedure
  • Texas Trial and Appellate Procedure
  • International Business Transactions
  • Contracts

André Hampton

Professor Emeritus of Law

Biography

Hampton began his teaching career at the University of Texas Law School as an adjunct professor. He joined St. Mary’s Law School in 1994 and was granted tenure in 2000. He has worked at St. Mary’s University for 20 years.

Hampton practiced for nine years with the prestigious Austin law firm Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody where he specialized in business, commercial law and health care law. He also served as president of the board of directors of the Dispute Resolution Center in Travis County, co-chairman of the Subcommittee on Funding and Legislation for the State Bar Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee and was also vice president of the board of directors of the People’s Community Clinic in Austin, Texas.

While at St. Mary’s, he has served in various administrative and leadership roles, including Associate Dean for Administration at the St. Mary’s School of Law and five years as president of the St. Mary’s University Faculty Senate.

He assumed the position of Vice President for Academic Affairs in February 2010 after serving as Interim Vice President since June 1, 2008. He was designated the university’s first Provost in September 2010. He returned to the law faculty in 2015.


Highlights

  • President, St. Mary’s University Faculty Senate, 2000-2002
  • Former President, Dispute Resolution Center, Travis County
  • Former, Co-Chairman, Subcommittee on Funding and Legislation, State Bar Committee, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
  • Former Co-Chairman, Travis County Settlement Week Committee
  • Dispute Resolver, National Health Lawyers’ Association Dispute Resolution Service
  • Previously taught Health Law as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas School of Law

Publications

Articles in a Periodical

  • Legal Obstacles to Bringing the Twenty-First Century into the Law Classroom: Stop being Creative, You May Already be in Trouble, 28 Oklahoma City U. L. Rev. 223 (2003)
  • The Princess and the Pea: The Assurance of Voluntary Compliance between the Texas Attorney General and Aetna’s Texas HMOs and Its Impact on Financial Risk Shifting by Managed Care 83 Boston U. Law Rev. 553 (2003)(co-authored with Brant S. Mittler, M.D., J.D.)
  • Markets, Myths & A Man on the Moon: Aiding and Abetting America’s Flight From Health Insurance, 52 Rutgers L. Rev. 987 (2000)
  • Resurrection of the Prohibition on the Corporate Practice of Medicine: Teaching Old Dogma New Tricks, 66 Univ. Cincinnati L. Rev. 489 (1998)
  • Mediation Supports Risk Management, 9 Texas Health Law Reporter 17 (1992)
  • Using ADR Techniques to Resolve Hospital – Medical Staff Disputes Within the Context of the Health Care Quality Improvement Act. (presented at Resolving Commercial Disputes without Litigation, University of Texas School of Law, Continuing Legal Education Program, New Orleans, Louisiana May 2 & 3, 1991)

André Hampton

Professor Emeritus of Law

Contact Information

Education

  • J.D. with Honors, University of Texas School of Law, 1984
  • M.A. Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, 1984
  • B.A. Liberal Arts Honors Program, University of Texas at Austin, 1979

License to Practice

  • Texas

Specialties and Courses

  • Health law
  • Bioethics
  • Dispute resolution
  • Commercial paper
  • Texas deceptive trade practices
  • Contracts
  • Sales

Albert Kauffman

Professor of Law

Biography

Kauffman has been a civil rights litigator specializing in the education, voting and employment rights of Latinos. For nearly 20 years, Kauffman was the senior litigating attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) in San Antonio.

As a MALDEF attorney, Kauffman was the lead attorney for plaintiffs in the Texas school finance cases, for Latino plaintiffs in the Texas Higher Education System finance and desegregation case and in litigation challenging the state’s use of the TAAS test for graduation from Texas high schools. He has also litigated affirmative action cases, local and state voting rights, employment discrimination cases, immigration and hospital admission policy cases.

After MALDEF, he served as a Senior Legal and Policy Advocate Associate for the Civil Rights Project at Harvard Law School. Subsequently, he served as the Senior Legal Policy Advocate at the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at the University of California at Berkeley. While there, he wrote about civil rights issues such as voting rights, No Child Left Behind, affirmative action, and public schools’ student assignment systems.

Kauffman was part of a small team of experts involved with passing both the state’s top 10 percent rule for admission to public universities and recent changes to admission and scholarship criteria for public graduate and professional schools.


Honors and Awards

  • Drum Major for Justice Award from the American Association for Affirmative Action (2013).
  • Maria A. Berriozabal Visionary Leadership Award from Our Lady of the Lake University (2013).
  • Texas Lawyer selection as one of “The 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter-Century,” 2010.
  • Lifetime Achievement Award, St. Mary’s Law School Hispanic Law Students Association, 2009.
  • Laredo Texas LULAC, Champions of Education Award, 2004.
  • Editorial Advisory Committee, Harvard Latino Law Review, 2003 (national award).
  • Mary’s School of Law, Sir Thomas More Award, 2003 (national award).
  • Boston College, chosen to give Boisi Lecture, “The No Child Left Behind Act, Dropouts and Affirmative Action: What’s the Common Issue?” 2003 (national award).
  • American GI Forum Lifetime Achievement Award, 2002.
  • Columbia Law School Human Rights Law Review Annual Award for Human Rights, 2002 (national award).
  • Edgewood School District Achievement Award, 2002.
  • Texas LULAC Service Award, 2002.
  • Amistad award Texas State IMAGE, 2000.
  • PTA national Lifetime Service Award, Edgewood I.S.D. PTA 2000.
  • Board of Advisors, The Scholar: St. Mary’s Law Review on Minority Issues, 1999 (national award).
  • Association of Higher Education – Hispanic Caucus selected to give Tomas Rivera lecture at 1997 National AHE Convention (national award).
  • Texas State NAACP – Heroes Award, 1996.
  • Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities – P. Gus Cardenas National Service to Higher Education Award – 1995 (national award).
  • Texas Lawyer, selected one of ten most influential lawyers in Texas for decade 1985-1995.
  • Hero for Children Award, Texas State Board of Education, 1994.
  • Henry B. Gonzalez Award, Legal Achievement – St. Mary’s Law School Hispanic Alumni, 1994.
  • Edgewood Plaintiffs Award – Service to Low-Wealth Districts, 1994.
  • San Antonio Chapter, ACLU – John Henry Faulk Liberty Award, 1992.
  • Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education – Meritorious Service Award, 1992.
  • Association of Higher Education – Hispanic Caucus Lifetime Achievement Award, 1992
  • Texas Mexican American Bar Association – Lifetime Achievement Award, 1992.
  • Incarnate Word College – “Insigne Verbum” Award, 1992.
  • San Antonio Mind Science Foundation, Imagineer Award, 1992.
  • McAllen Tripas Club, “Tripero Distinguido,” 1990.
  • Texas GI Forum Education Award, 1990.
  • Texas Mexican American Bar Association Education Award, 1990.
  • Harlandale I.S.D. Education Award, 1989.
  • San Antonio Bilingual Education Trendsetter, 1988.
  • Texas LULAC “Educacion – La Solucion,” 1988.
  • Edgewood I.S.D., “Amigos de Edgewood”, 1987.
  • Socorro I.S.D. Educational Achievement Award, 1987.
  • Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education, 1986.
  • Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans, 1984.

Publications

Articles in a Periodical

Shorter Works in Collections

  • Texas School Finance Litigation: Great Progress and Some Regression, in Institute for Educational Equity and Opportunity, A Quality Education for Every Child: Stories from the Lawyers on the Front Lines, pp.109-155 (David Long, et al. ed., 2009).
  • A Continuation of an Analysis of School Finance Cases Comparing Adequacy and Equity Theories, Albert H. Kauffman. Rockefeller Foundation. 01/2004. p. 26.
  • A Comparison of Equity and Adequacy School Finance Cases and a Consideration of the Current New York and California School Finance Litigation on the Equity and Adequacy Dimensions, Albert H. Kauffman. Rockefeller Foundation. 01/2003. p. 26.
  • The Hopwood Case: What It Says and What It Doesn’t, chapter in Affirmative Action’s Testament of Hope: Strategies for a New Era in Higher Education by Mildred Garcia, State University of New York Press (1997).
  • Minority Concerns: A Response to TASP, Chapter in From Politics to Policy: A Case Study in Educational Reform, Matthews, Swanson, Kerker, Praeger Press, (New York, NY 1991).No Child Left Behind Act Resource Guide, The Civil Rights Project at Harvard (2004) (with Dan Losen)
  • Lead writer and lead researcher on large number of briefs to U.S. Supreme Court, Texas Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and numerous U.S. District Courts on issues of school finance, testing, higher education finance, affirmative action, and voting rights.

Op-Eds

Presentations

  • History of School Finance Issues in Texas, Say Si youth project, San Antonio, June, 2017.
  • Reflections of Texas Scholars on Growing up in Texas, American Education Research Association national convention, San Antonio, April 2017.
  • Civil and Criminal Procedures, The U.S Legal System and the Mexican Oral Trials Course, St. Mary’s University, August 2016.
  • Panel: The Fisher Decision, 7th Annual Texas Higher Education Symposium, Austin, Texas August, 2016.
  • United States Legal Systems, Presentation to law students at Universidad Enrique Diaz de Leon, Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico, March, 2016. (In Spanish)
  • School Finance Update to San Antonio Inns of Court, February 2015.
  • Phoenix Law School, Phoenix Arizona, presentation to faculty on Wal-Mart case and class actions, Nov. 2011.
  • Phoenix Law School, Phoenix Arizona, presentation to students on effects of litigation on societal change, Nov. 2011.
  • Texas Tech Law School, presentation to faculty on Wal-Mart case and class actions, Oct. 2011.
  • “A Comparison of Fifth Circuit and Texas Class Action Cases—Worse and Worser: No Class Left in Texas” New Scholars Workshop, August 2, 2010, Southeast Association of Law Schools, Palm Beach Florida.
  • Hispanic National Bar Association annual convention, Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 8, 2010, Latino Education issues.

Albert Kauffman

Professor of Law

Portrait of Al Kauffman

Contact Information

Education

  • J.D. University of Texas School of Law, 1974
  • B.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1971

License to Practice

  • Texas

Specialties and Courses

  • Federal procedure
  • Texas procedure
  • Education and civil rights

Aloysius A. Leopold

Professor Emeritus of Law

Biography

For five years following law school, Leopold practiced law in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas in the area of real estate transactions. He joined the St. Mary’s faculty in 1967 and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1970.

Leopold received St. Mary’s University’s first Distinguished Faculty Award for the School of Law in 1984. As the author of legal treatises, he was the most prolific scholar of his generation on the law faculty.

Leopold’s contributions to the development and clarification of Texas law have been cited by courts and have benefited people in every part of this state.


Aloysius A. Leopold

Professor Emeritus of Law

Education

  • J.D., St. Mary’s University, 1962
  • B.A., St. Mary’s University, 1970

License to Practice

  • Texas

Specialties and Courses

  • Wills and Estates
  • Community Property
  • Trusts

Dorie Klein

Professor of Law | Englehardt Research Fellow

Biography

St. Mary’s University School of Law Professor Dorie Klein, J.D., writes and teaches in the areas of evidence, criminal law and mental health law. Her recent scholarship includes several law review articles examining the pitfalls of character evidence, as well as several articles exploring ways to reduce the excessive punitiveness of criminal punishments. In 2022 Carolina Academic Press published the second edition of her casebook, Texas Criminal Law. In addition to teaching core courses in evidence and criminal law, Klein has developed upper-level writing seminars that focus on a variety of specialized subjects, including mental health law, the law of self-defense and the operation of appellate courts.

Prior to joining the St. Mary’s law faculty in 2006,  Klein was a visiting assistant professor of law at Florida State University and a judicial clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She received her J.D. degree from Vanderbilt University, where she was an articles editor for the Vanderbilt Law Review. Klein also holds an M.A. degree in clinical psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in biopsychology from Swarthmore College. She worked as a community mental health therapist for several years before attending law school.


Publications


Dorie Klein

Professor of Law | Englehardt Research Fellow

Contact Information

Education

  • J.D., Vanderbilt University Law School, 2002
  • M.A. Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 1989
  • B.A., Swarthmore College, 1988

License to Practice

  • New York

Specialties and Courses

  • Criminal law
  • Evidence
  • Mental health law
  • Property
  • Theories of punishment

Chenglin “Gary” Liu

Professor of Law | Katherine A. Ryan Chair for Global and International Law

Biography

Chenglin “Gary” Liu has been teaching torts, products liability, wills, trusts, and estates, and law and economics at the St. Mary’s University School of Law since 2007. Through the years, he has developed a unique teaching style, focusing on problem solving and individual thinking. In 2019, Liu received the Alumni Association Distinguished Faculty Award, becoming professor of the year. Prior to St. Mary’s, Professor Liu taught various law courses in China, Austria and the U.K. 

Liu has served on various committees, including the Faculty Appointment Committee, Non-Tenure Review Committee, Law Journal Committee and Admissions Committee. From 2012 to 2019, Liu served as a co-director of the LL.M. programs.

He has written about torts, wills and trusts, food and drug safety, and Chinese law. His articles have been downloaded more than 10,000 times from across the world. Recently, Liu devoted his time to writing Learning Wills, Trusts, and Estates for West Academic’s Learning Series. Unlike traditional casebooks, the Learning Series emphasizes readability, clarity, rule learning and assessments. The book was out in print in summer 2025. In the meantime, Liu delved into affirmative action and racially motivated charities, resulting in law review articles on these topics.

Currently, Liu continues to pursue a varied research agenda that builds on his most recent work, further expanding on how discriminatory charities are scrutinized and whether donors will continue to contribute to nonprofit organizations, including educational institutions, without the benefit of tax deductions. On the tort law front, Liu’s research will focus on whether the current products liability and public nuisance doctrines will effectively prevent consumers from being physically and emotionally injured by AI products and whether a new doctrine should be developed to regulate AI technology.


Publications

Books

  • Learning Wills, Trusts, and Estates, West Academic Publishing, 2025
  • (With Vincent R. Johnson), Studies in American Tort Law, 7th ed., Carolina Academic Press2021
  • (With Vincent R. Johnson), Teaching Torts: A Teacher’s Guide to Studies in American Tort Law, 7th ed., Carolina Academic Press, 2021
  • Chinese Law in Context, Carolina Academic Press, 2020
  • Chinese Law on SARS, Hein, 2004

Articles

Media Highlights


Chenglin “Gary” Liu

Professor of Law | Katherine A. Ryan Chair for Global and International Law

Education

  • J.S.D, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, 2005
  • M.S., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002
  • LL.M, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, 2000
  • LL.M. in European Law, Lund University Faculty of Law, Sweden, 1999
  • LL.M., Dalian University of Technology, China, 1993
  • LL.B., Shenyang Normal University, China, 1990

Specialties and Courses

  • Tort Law
  • Wills, Trusts and Estates
  • Products Liability
  • Law and Economics
  • Chinese Law

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