PropertyProf Blog

Texas A&M Law's Real Property Law Schmooze (Jan. 31 - Feb. 2)

Just in from Lisa Alexander and Thomas Mitchell, the Texas A&M University School of Law is hosting its annual Real Property Law Schmooze today and Saturday (Feb 2) in Fort Worth. As usual, there's a great line-up of all-star property scholars. This year's theme is Where Do We Go From Here: Fair Housing and Community Development at a Crossroads. The keynote speaker is Vicki L. Been, the Boxer Family Professor of Law at NYU Law School, Affiliated Professor of Public Policy of the NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, Faculty Director at the NYU Furman Center, and Former Commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development for the City of New York. Here's the theme summary:

The flagship event of the Program in Real Estate and Community Development Law at Texas A&M University School of Law, the Real Property Law Schmooze is an invitation-only workshop focused on the intellectual engagement of property law scholars. This annual event affords property law scholars the opportunity to share unpublished works-in-progress or early-stage ideas with other leading property law scholars at Texas A&M University and beyond. For the past two years, the Program has invited between 15-20 external property law scholars from law schools across the country to the Schmooze. The Schmooze has also been highlighted on national property law blogs.

The 2019 “Where Do We Go from Here? Fair Housing and Community Development at a Crossroads" Schmooze invites 20 legal scholars with expertise in either fair housing law, urban and rural property law, and/or community development law to present unpublished works-in-progress or early-stage ideas. In the wake of the 50th ​anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, and as federal support for fair housing, affordable housing, and community development dwindles, the papers will loosely relate to strategies that can help the fair housing and community development fields bridge longstanding conflicts and come together during this critical time.

NEW BOOK: Property Law in a Globalizing World

Amnon Lehavi (Harry Radzyner Law School) just published a new book titled "Property Law in a Globalizing World" with Cambridge University Press. Here's the summary:

Property Law in a Globalizing World identifies the paramount challenges that contemporary processes of globalization pose for the study and practice of property law. It offers a straightforward analysis of legal scenarios implicating cross-border property rights, covering a broad range of resources, from land, goods, and intangible financial assets, to intellectual property, data, and digital assets. This is the first scholarly book offering a detailed study of legal strategies that can decrease the gap between the domestic tenets of property law and the cross-border nature of markets, interpersonal networks, and technology. It shows how strategies of soft law, conflict of laws, harmonization and supranationalism rely to various degrees on cross-border property norms and institutions, and studies the proprietary features of security interests and priorities to assets in insolvency in a global setting. It also shows how digital technology such as blockchain can revolutionize the system of cross-border property rights.

CFP: Institute for Law Teaching and Learning Summer Conference

This just in from Emily Grant (Washburn):

CALL FOR PRESENTATION PROPOSALS

Institute for Law Teaching and Learning Summer Conference

“Teaching Today’s Law Students”

June 3-5, 2019

Washburn University School of Law

Topeka, Kansas

The Institute for Law Teaching and Learning invites proposals for conference workshops addressing the many ways that law professors and administrators are reaching today’s law students.   With the ever-changing and heterogeneous nature of law students, this topic has taken on increased urgency for professors thinking about effective teaching strategies. 

The conference theme is intentionally broad and is designed to encompass a wide variety of topics – neuroscientific approaches to effective teaching; generational research about current law students; effective use of technology in the classroom; teaching first-generation college students; classroom behavior in the current political climate; academic approaches to less prepared students; fostering qualities such as growth mindset, resilience, and emotional intelligence in students; or techniques for providing effective formative feedback to students.

Accordingly, the Institute invites proposals for 60-minute workshopsconsistent with a broad interpretation of the conference theme. Each workshop should include materials that participants can use during the workshop and when they return to their campuses. Presenters should model effective teaching methods by actively engaging the workshop participants.  The Institute Co-Directors are glad to work with anyone who would like advice on designing their presentations to be interactive.

To be considered for the conference, proposals should be one page (maximum), single-spaced, and include the following information:

• The title of the workshop;
• The name, address, telephone number, and email address of the presenter(s); and
• A summary of the contents of the workshop, including its goals and methods; and
• A description of the techniques the presenter will use to engage workshop participants and make the workshop interactive.

The proposal deadline is February 15, 2019.  Submit proposals via email to Professor Emily Grant, Co-Director, Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, at [email protected].

Weiss on Housing Incentives, Affordability, and the Issue of Location

Brandon Weiss (UMKC) has posted Locating Affordable Housing: The Legal System's Misallocation of Subsidized Housing Incentives (Hastings Law Journal) on SSRN. Here's the abstract:

The primary goal of subsidized housing policy in the United States is to increase access to affordable housing for low-income households. Yet data show that states disproportionately award low-income housing tax credits to finance the development of projects in neighborhoods where there is already a relatively high number of housing units available at similar rent levels. Through a fifty-state study of state housing agency allocation rules, this Article evaluates the legal apparatus that facilitates this “misallocation problem.” I find that approximately seventy-five percent of states fail to make the provision of below-market rents a threshold requirement of receiving an award of low-income housing tax credits. As a result, locational choices often are dictated by private developers who are incentivized to develop where land is cheapest. I argue that states should revise their allocation rules to ensure that, as a default, tax credits are awarded to projects that offer at least a ten percent rent advantage as compared to the local private market. The Article considers challenges to this proposal related to lack of state housing agency autonomy, federal framework limitations, land costs, and local political opposition and, in each case, offers a variety of responses.