Texas Law Review Assocation

Texas Law Review alumni form a worldwide network of professionals who advance the rule of law in society. This year’s editorial board has made a strong commitment to expanding and establishing formal networking opportunities. As part of a new TLR webpage, we will include an online alumni directory and information page. We also hope to coordinate special events for alumni in cities across the county. We hope you will join us in developing new programs around the country to keep TLR alumni actively engaged in the law review network and excited about legal scholarship. Below are several ways you can get involved or take a leadership role in our endeavors:

• Take a leadership role in the formation of local associations. We hope to create local associations in Austin, Houston, Dallas, Washington DC, Los Angeles, and New York City. These local associations will be run by former TLR members and host a variety of events. If there is enough interest, we would like to host happy hours for current and former TLR members in all of the cities listed above this summer. If you are interested in becoming a City Alumni Chair, please contact our administrative editor, Tania Culbertson, at admin@texaslrev.com.

• Give a speech at the University of Texas Law Review on an area of legal scholarship. In recognition of the contributions of TLR members to legal scholarship, we would like to present the work of TLR alumni at the law school where professors, students, and local practitioners can benefit from their contribution to the field.

• Join the alumni directory.

If you have any questions or would like to take a leadership role, please contact our administrative editor and the Executive Director of the Texas Law Review Association, Tania Culbertson, at admin@texaslrev.com.

 Prominent TLR Alumni

In Memoriam: Greg Coleman

Gregory S. Coleman, who was Managing Editor of Volume 70 in 1991–1992, and the President of the Texas Law Review Alumni Association, died on November 23, 2010.

After graduating from UT, Greg completed clerkships with Judge Edith Jones and Justice Clarence Thomas. He then built a career as a highly accomplished appellate litigator in federal and state appellate courts across the country. In particular, he achieved an impressive track record in the United States Supreme Court, arguing 9 cases and winning 7 (with one still pending as of this writing). He served as the first Solicitor General of the State of Texas and helped to set up the office and define its responsibilities and procedures. He was active and held leadership positions in numerous professional and charitable organizations, including the ABA and the Red Cross of Central Texas.

Among his many professional activities, Greg consistently devoted time to supporting TLR. He served on the TLRA Board for many years and was ultimately chosen as its President for 2010–2011. He hired and mentored many TLR alumni. And, as those of us who worked with him knew, he carried forward from his TLR years a strong (borderline idiosyncratic) commitment to and enthusiasm for the small details of presentation, cite form, and editorial consistency in his briefs. To Greg, these details were crucial because they signaled to the court that the advocate was attentive to correctness in the small things, and therefore likely to be so in the large things as well. Certainly that was true in his case. Greg not only had a remarkable knack for analyzing a legal problem and proposing an innovative strategy both to solve it and to persuade a court to adopt that solution, he also performed a final proofread on each brief before it went out and invariably would catch errors that others had missed.

Beyond the law, Greg had many interests including fishing at Port O’Connor, hunting, and American history. Above all, Greg was devoted to his church and to his family—his wife Stephanie and their three boys. He was loved and respected by many, including those of us who worked for him, and he will be greatly missed.

Scott Atlas

Scott Atlas is a senior partner specializing in complex commercial litigation in the Houston office of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. Before joining Weil, Gotshal & Manges in April 2006, Mr. Atlas was a partner at the Houston office of Vinson & Elkins where he practiced for almost thirty years.

Mr. Atlas graduated magna cum laude from Yale in 1971 and received his J.D. with honors (Order of the Coif; Chancellors) in 1975 from the University of Texas School of Law where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Texas Law Review from 1974–75.

After receiving his J.D., Mr. Atlas clerked for The Honorable Thomas Gibbs Gee, US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1975–76. During his clerkship, Mr. Atlas found that the court had no organized method of finding lawyers to handle pro bono appeals. This led him in 1982 to create the Texas Appointment Plan for which he has been the coordinator since. To date, the Texas Appointment Plan has recruited more than 125 Texas law firms to provide volunteer legal representation of indigents before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in all non-capital cases tried in Texas federal courts.

In April of 1977, Mr. Atlas took on a pro bono case, which he eventually litigated in the Supreme Court. Mr. Atlas challenged the constitutionality of an automatic life sentence under the Texas habitual offender statute (which mandated a life sentence on third felony conviction) as applied to his client, Bill Rummel, who had been convicted for three petty property crimes totaling $229.11. Mr. Atlas eventually prevailed on a finding of ineffective assistance of counsel, after which he successfully lobbied the Texas legislature to eliminate the mandatory life sentencing provision.

In 1992, the government of Mexico asked Mr. Atlas to represent Ricardo Aldape Guerra, an undocumented worker from Mexico who had been sentenced to death for murdering a Houston police officer. After Mr. Atlas took the case, several federal and state courts ruled that Aldape Guerra was innocent and had been the victim of police and prosecutorial misconduct. Finally, in 1997, Mr. Atlas secured Guerra’s release when the Harris County District Attorney dropped all charges.

With over thirty years of experience at the trial and appellate level since 1976, Mr. Atlas’s practice spans matters involving antitrust, commercial arbitration, business torts, construction, contract disputes, legal malpractice, lender liability, municipal law, securities, trade secrets, trademarks infringement, and general commercial litigation. Mr. Atlas recently represented the City of Houston in a suit brought by the Houston Police Officers Pension System who sought increased funding for the pension system. The case ultimately settled with renegotiated pension terms that reduced a projected shortfall by more than $300 million. Mr. Atlas is currently representing the City of Houston in litigation over two competing tax provisions.

Mr. Atlas appears in both the 2006 and 2007 editions of The Best Lawyers in America, in the Texas Monthly among the one hundred top lawyers in Houston in 2005 and 2006, and has been listed as a “Texas Super Lawyer” every year since the survey began. He has received awards and recognition at the national, state, and local level for his professional achievements.

Among these are the Young Lawyers Association “Outstanding Young Lawyer of Houston Award” which he received in 1984; the American Bar Association Pro Bono Award, which he received in 1986 “for contributing significant work toward developing innovative approaches to the delivery of volunteer legal services to the poor”; the Texas Law Review Leon Green Award, “For Outstanding Contribution to the Legal Profession” which he received in 1997; and The University of Texas School of Law Alumni Association Distinguished Alumnus for Community Service award which he received in 2000. As a testament to his distinguished career, Mr. Atlas chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation from 2002–03, and was recently appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry as an ex-officio member of the Governor’s Criminal Justice Advisory Council.

Mr. Atlas has been the pro-bono General Counsel of Houston’s Alley Theatre since 1985 and served for many years on the Theatre’s board and executive committees. He is a member of the Houston Shakespeare Festival and served as its first president. He remains actively involved with the University of Texas and the School of Law, serving on the University’s Committee of 125 (a long-range planning committee) from 2003–04, on the Board of Advisors for The University of Texas School of Law, and as director of The University of Texas Chancellor’s Council, Executive Committee from 2001–present. Mr. Atlas is an integral part of the Texas Law Review, having served as President of the Texas Law Review Association from 1979–80, as director of the Association from 1977–96, and as emeritus director of the Association since.

Mr. Atlas lives in Houston with his wife, U.S. District Judge Nancy. Their two sons are currently students at Yale University.