South Texas College of Law Houston wins first place at Abrams National Mediator Competition at the University of Houston.
South Texas College of Law Houston student Amanda Gordon won first place at the Jeffry S. Abrams National Mediator Competition, hosted by the University of Houston’s Blakely Advocacy Institute, October 7-8, 2016. Students Lily Kao and Taylor Pound also represented the law school in the competition.
Sixteen students from nine law schools across the country participated in the competition, which includes five rounds of mediation problems. In each round, competitors were judged on their effectiveness in demonstrating neutrality, explaining the mediation process, active listening, and other pertinent mediation skills. This is the second win for South Texas College of Law Houston in the four years the law school has competed in the Abrams Competition; both winning teams were coached by Kristyn Koch ’14.
South Texas College of Law Houston’s alternative dispute resolution teams regularly compete in up to nine events each year—more than any other law school in Texas. The law school’s rigorous selection process, combined with the leadership of program director Debra Berman and several dedicated alumni coaches, has garnered the school 11 national and international first-place wins in recent years.
South Texas College of Law Houston Establishes Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic to Benefit the Community and Students
With a new $43,000 grant from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), South Texas College of Law Houston recently established a pro bono, Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC) to educate Houstonians on tax issues and help them resolve tax problems. The LITC can help a wide variety of people, including those who have a tax question, those who have received a letter from the IRS and are not sure how to proceed, and those who owe back taxes but are unable to pay them.
Staff and students in the LITC will serve taxpayers in the Greater Houston region, including those in Brazoria, Fort Bend, Harris, and Montgomery Counties. This geographic area is home to approximately 5.7 million individuals, two million of whom live at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level.
Among these residents, 43 percent are Hispanic or Latino, 7 percent are Asian, and 39 percent speak a language other than English at home. For this reason, the LITC also will target the large Spanish-speaking populations in the region, as well as other international communities, such as Asian populations speaking Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Hindi. To reach these residents, the LITC will work closely with community agencies that currently partner with the law school’s 16 other clinics, including those that address immigration, civil practice issues, and domestic violence.