Lawyers at the Law Library

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Houston Bar Association President Neil Kelly visited the Harris County Law Library and Houston Volunteer Lawyers on September 4. In the photo from left are Parker Lee, HVL volunteer and associate with Andrews Kurth LLP; Stephanie Sommerlatte, HVL Staff Attorney; Patrick Yarborough, HVL volunteer and associate with Andrews Kurth; County Attorney Vince Ryan; Law Library Director Mariann Sears; Neil Kelly; and Alissa Rubin, Executive Director of HVL.

Source: Harris County Law Library, Photographer Joe Strange

The Harris County Law Library is pleased to announce a new program that helps litigants with limited means to speak with an attorney within steps of the courthouses in Harris County, Texas. In collaboration with Houston Volunteer Lawyers, volunteer attorneys and law students are now meeting with self-represented litigants every Wednesday and Friday from 9a.m. to 12p.m. at the Law Library's downtown Houston location. The Law Library provides support services to both the volunteer attorneys and limited-means clients by offering research and technology support, computers where self-represented litigants can access and create documents, and information about navigating the downtown courthouse complex.

Wednesday Clinics

Each Wednesday, faculty and students from Houston College of Law help self-represented litigants determine the legal information and documentation they need to represent themselves in court. The purpose of these clinics is multifaceted. Students gain professional experience and an awareness of the depth of the access to justice problems many individuals face while self-represented litigants receive assistance that makes their legal process more efficient both for them and the courts hearing their cases.

Friday Clinics

On Fridays, associates from Andrews Kurth, LLP staff clinics at the Law Library. Andrews Kurth is a Houston-based firm that is frequently recognized for its commitment to pro bono service and is listed as an Equal Access Firm by Houston Volunteers Lawyers. Additional members of Houston's legal community have pledged to staff Friday clinics at the Law Library to ensure that services remain available for those in need.

A Collaborative Effort

The initial plan to bring volunteer lawyers to the Law Library began as a collaboration between Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan and the Houston Bar Association several years ago. When the Law Library joined the County Attorney's Office in 2011, plans were laid to build out a new space for the Law Library on the first floor of Congress Plaza (1019 Congress Street) complete with offices for volunteer attorneys on the lower level. With all services operational, including those provided by the volunteer attorneys, the Law Library is more useful to the residents of Harris County than ever before and has become a great resource for anyone who must go to court without an attorney.

Immigration Law Resource Month

In conjunction with the upcoming CLE series on Immigration Law and Internment Camps in Texas, which will feature three seminars in the month of October, the Harris County Law Library is highlighting our collection of Immigration Law Resources. Throughout September, print materials on all aspects of immigration law will be on display. Treatises like Kurzban’s Immigration Law Sourcebook (the 15th edition, just published and pictured here, is now on our shelves) and a number of CLE coursebooks from TexasBarCLE will be highlighted. You’ll also find immigration law resources in the Law Library’s digital collection, including official immigration forms through Westlaw and the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal on HeinOnline. Search the Law Library catalog for additional titles or ask the library staff for assistance in finding the resources you need. 

Announcing Upcoming Lecture Series

Footage from the Alien Enemy Detention Facility at Crystal City, Texas. This film was distributed by the U.S. Dept. of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1945. It is now part of the U.S. National Archives (ID# 13206).

The Harris County Law Library is happy to announce a three-part lecture series hosted in collaboration with Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan titled Immigration Law and Internment Camps in Texas: Legal Perspectives on The Train To Crystal City by Jan Jarboe Russell. An hour-long lecture will be offered at noon on October 4, October 11, and October 18 at the Law Library's downtown Houston location. Lunch is provided and attorneys can earned 3.0 hours of CLE credit and 1.0 hour of ethics credit in Texas. For more information and to RSVP, visit the event page on the Harris County Attorney Office website.

At each event, distinguished speakers will discuss legal aspects of this year's Gulf Coast Reads featured title The Train to Crystal City. The book presents the story of internees of German and Japanese descent who found themselves at the family internment camp in Crystal City, Texas during World War II. The stories are told on a personal level with references to the federal legal mechanisms that affected each internee, many of whom were U.S. citizens, and the international politics that led to many internees being repatriated to their ancestral nations in exchange for American prisoners of war. With a story line that takes place in the Lone Star State and an author who is a native of the Texas gulf coast, this book is a natural candidate for the Gulf Coast Reads program, through which a book with local ties is read at libraries and book clubs through the month of October. Visit the Gulf Coast Reads website for more on this year's read and archives of past featured titles.

Who Owns Space Stuff?

When a meteorite hit the ground in Egypt in the 13th century, the question of what to do with it was easily answered - make a dagger out of it and give it to King Tut. The question today of who owns space objects is less-easily answered and likely to involve some litigation. For example, when a meteorite hit a clinic in suburban Virginia in 2010, a dispute arose between the doctors and the landlord about who owed the rock. After some legal research and novel arguments, the doctors were able to donate the rock to the Smithsonian and donate the finders fee to Doctors Without Borders.

In honor of Space Law Month here at the Harris County Law Library, we thought we would assemble a few resources to help answer the unusual question of who owns a celestial chattel. As with the answer to many legal questions, the answer starts with "it depends," so here are resources for a few scenarios.

Natural Objects Naturally Falling to Earth

The question of ownership over space rocks that fall from the sky seems to be jurisdictional in nature. In his 2002 article in Meteorites & Planetary Science, Canadian lawyer Douglas Schmitt provides a survey of laws of various nations applicable to found space objects. Depending on where the rock hits the Earth, it may belong to the finder, the landowner, a government agency, or a national museum. With citation to relevant cases and regulations, Schmitt's article is a great place to start your research.

Natural Objects Brought to Earth

No one is legally entitled to own lunar objects, including moon rocks, pebbles, core samples, or space dust that has been collected in the course of a lunar mission and brought back to Earth. All samples of this type are considered national treasures. One individual, Alan Rosen, learned this lesson the hard way. On a business trip to Honduras in 1995, Mr. Rosen met with a retired Honduran colonel, Roberto Argurcia Ugarte, who had acquired a moon rock and accompanying plaque following a military coup in 1973. The artifact had been given as a gift by President Nixon on behalf of the United States to the people of the Republic of Honduras. Mr. Rosen purchased the moon rock from Colonel Ugarte and brought it back to the United States in violation of 19 U.S. Code § 1595a. Upon learning of Mr. Rosen’s acquisition, the United States sought to seize the artifact in the case known as UNITED STATES of America v. ONE LUCITE BALL CONTAINING LUNAR MATERIAL (One Moon Rock) and One Ten Inch by Fourteen Inch Wooden Plaque Defendant In Rem. Details of the case and the events surrounding Mr. Rosen’s acquisition of this rare space treasure are presented in The Case of the Missing Moon Rocks, along with film footage of astronauts collecting lunar artifacts from the surface of the moon.

Man-made Objects in Space

With an estimated 21,000 bits of space debris now orbiting the Earth (for an excellent visual representation of all this space junk, see James Yoder’s fascinating website, Stuff in Space, a real-time 3D tracking tool of each object’s location, orbit, and speed), issues concerning ownership of satellites and the like can present major legal issues. When confronting these issues, there are different aspects of ownership that might be researched, including who may exert ownership over objects in orbit and who is responsible for damages if those objects do harm. In his 2012 article published in The Space Review, space law attorney Michael Listner provides an overview of laws applicable to both facets of the question. According to Listner, these objects all still belong to the country that launched them under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which seems to clear up the question until one considers the web of arms treaties and quasi-binding conventions and agreements that may also come into play. Listner's article will help jump start your research.

Man-made Objects Naturally Falling to Earth

When man-made objects fall from space, causing personal injury or damage to property, the question arises: Who do we sue and how do we do it? The 1972 Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects is a good resource to consult, unless of course the space debris is part of a United States vehicle that makes landfall on American soil. In this case, the Federal Tort Claims Act may apply. In either case, the likelihood of confronting this issue is low. Space debris does occasionally fall to Earth, and even small chunks of orbital junk (< 2 inches), can be harmful, but most of the derelict space craft and associated debris poses little risk to those of us on terra firma. Even so, as an intellectual inquiry, the question of what happens to objects hurling through space is well-addressed in this Primer on the Legal Issues Surrounding Space Debris Remediation.

With this blog post, we conclude Space Law Month at the Harris County Law Library. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading and learning about the legal issues surrounding outer space exploration as much as we’ve enjoyed sharing resources with you. 

Latest & Greatest – Municipal Law Deskbook

Edited by William J. Scheiderich

Published by American Bar Association (2015)

KF 5305 .S34 2015

For the lawyer who practices before or for local governments comes Municipal Law Deskbook, a comprehensive guide for analyzing and handling the issues that most frequently arise in municipal law cases. Written by lawyers with decades-worth of experience in municipal law matters, Municipal Law Deskbook offers clear explanations of the applicability of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to public sector employees, the liability of public employees for wrongful acts, and the regulation of free speech in the public workplace. In addition, the authors provide an overview of regulatory taking and inverse condemnation, open meetings/open records laws, and the power of a municipality to raise taxes, generate revenue, and borrow money. Municipal Law Deskbook is a great resource for anyone wanting to know more about constitutional and employment law-related issues in a public context.