The Corporate Counsel Review
Journal of the Corporate Counsel Section – State Bar of Texas
The Corporate Counsel Review is a scholarly and practical journal sponsored by the Corporate Counsel Section of the State Bar of Texas and edited by students at South Texas College of Law Houston. The Review covers topics that might be of interest to in-house counsel, including aspects of business entities law, employment, securities, real estate, agency, intellectual property, insurance, alternative dispute resolution, immigration, bankruptcy, antitrust, and contract law.
The Corporate Counsel Review is the flagship journal of the Corporate Counsel Section of the State Bar of Texas. The Review was founded in the 1980s with the mission to encourage and distribute scholarly commentary of use to in-house counsel and facilitate discussion among Section members. The Review’s mission has expanded over time as Section members and their clients have spread throughout the world.
The Corporate Counsel Review retains the same goals. It is published semiannually by South Texas College of Law Houston to the Section’s members, now numbering over 4,700.
Each issue of the Review includes articles written by legal scholars, attorneys—in-house counsel and outside counsel, or judges whose legal focus is centered on some aspect of representing business entities. Articles are selected by the editor with the help of the managing and associate editors. Each issue also includes case notes of current, groundbreaking cases, written and edited by the Review’s staff. For tables of contents, see What We Have Published.
Professor R. Hanson Lawton took the lead in 1981, becoming the Review’s founding editor. Professor Lawton was succeeded by Professor Paul E. McGreal in 2005. In May of 2007, Professor Val Ricks became editor and currently maintains the position. Through the years, the editors have had extensive help from the managing editor and associate editors—students chosen competitively to assist in the editing process. Interested students, please see Membership.
Val D Ricks joined the South Texas College of Law Houston faculty in 1996 as an assistant professor of law and was granted tenure in 2002. He was the Charles Weigel II Research Professor for 2015-19 and the Vinson & Elkins Research Professor for 2005-09. He teaches Contracts, Corporations, Agency & Partnership, and Antitrust. Professor Ricks has visited at Texas Tech (where he taught Mergers & Acquisitions) and BYU. His scholarly interests include contract law history and theory, business associations law, and jurisprudence, and his writings have appeared in the Georgetown Law Journal, Indiana Law Journal, BYU Law Review, George Mason Law Review, University of Kansas Law Review, Baylor Law Review, Florida State University Law Review, Texas A&M Law Review, and South Texas Law Review. He is author of a contracts casebook published through CALI.
Prior to joining the South Texas College of Law Houston faculty, Professor Ricks was an associate at Kirton & McConkie in Salt Lake City, where he specialized in transactional and corporate law and appellate litigation. He was also a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Charles Wiggins of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Ricks earned his law degree at BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, where he graduated summa cum laude, was inducted into the Order of the Coif, and served as an Executive Editor of the BYU Law Review. He earned his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude, also from BYU. He and his bride are the parents of seven beautiful children.
Staff sign up for a one-credit (per semester) course, receive training in editing, and work with more senior editors to edit and solicit articles. Staff also write a brief note on a recent case that would be of interest to the Review’s subscribers.
Work on the Review is:
- a great experience in editing and teamwork,
- a chance to see your work published, and
- a high mark on your resume!
Application periods for membership on the Review open at the beginning of Fall and Spring semesters. To be eligible, you must have already completed thirty hours. Selection is competitive; grammar, punctuation, and citation form matter; and assignments will begin as soon as editors are chosen, perhaps the next day. Watch for an announcement during the first week of school. The CCR wants you to commit to up to three semesters if you are accepted (if you have three; 3Ls are welcome to apply). The writing experience on the CCR does not fulfill the upper-level writing requirement. Questions about membership may be directed to the Review’s editor at vricks@stcl.edu.
Solicitation of Manuscripts
The Editor and the Corporate Counsel Section leadership welcome submissions. We seek balanced, scholarly writing that will inform and improve the practice of Corporate Counsel Section members, most of whom are in-house counsel and lawyers who work with them.
Many of our authors have written with our journal and subscribers in mind, and many authors’ works have been noticed and sought by our editors. Legal scholars of a practical mind and practicing attorneys with a scholarly approach are welcomed here. A practicing attorney may have a particularly thorough CLE presentation, a scholarly client letter reflecting unique expertise, or a well-researched internal memo that could become the basis of an article. Please consider the Review in your efforts to serve the bar and bench and expand your influence.
Section members have access to past issues. Issues since 2011 are also published on Westlaw.
Contact
Inquiries and submissions are welcomed at ccreview@stcl.edu.
Editorial Policy
The Editorial Board seeks to stimulate thought, discussion, and implementation of improvements in the business and business-entity law underlying our system of capitalism and business enterprise. The Board encourages expression of the considered opinions of our contributors, some of which are controversial and will not meet with agreement from others. Ideas expressed in the Corporate Counsel Review do not necessarily express the official policy of the Corporate Counsel Section of the State Bar of Texas.
Areas of Interest
The following topics are issues of interest for in-house counsel and their advisors in private practice:
- Business Entity Law
- Alternative Dispute Resolution
- Antitrust & Competition
- Bankruptcy
- Banking & Finance
- Capital Markets
- Consumer Goods & Retail
- Data & Technology
- Employment & Compensation
- Energy, Mining, and Infrastructure
- Ethics
- Health Care
- Insurance
- Intellectual Property
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Practical Aspects of In-house Representation
- Real Estate
- Tax
This list is not an exhaustive list. The Board encourages ideas that will benefit in-house counsel even if not expressly listed above.
The Corporate Counsel Review’s email address is ccreview@stcl.edu.
Corporate Counsel Review
South Texas College of Law Houston
1303 San Jacinto St., Suite 707
Houston, TX 77002
