UNLV law professor’s work gets national notice

Thursday, Dec. 8, 2005 | 9:53 a.m.

It's been a busy year for UNLV law professor Robert Lawless, what with his many interviews with The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, CNN and CNBC.

News outlets, along with the Las Vegas Sun, all scrambled to get the Lawless opinion on the changes to the bankruptcy law because of his research article on the effects the legislation might have on Hurricane Katrina victims, Boyd Law School Dean Richard Morgan said. The article links natural disasters such as hurricanes to subsequent surges in bankruptcy filings.

Ironically, the article wasn't even published yet, Lawless said. It's to be released soon in the Nevada Law Review. But he started getting calls after his research was mentioned at a Consumer Federation of America press conference in September.

But he also made the media rounds in the summer for an article he wrote for the California Law Review questioning the government's numbers on business bankruptcies.

The federal government recorded that business bankruptcies accounted for only 2.3 percent of all filings, promoting a myth that most bankruptcies are from consumer overspending, Lawless said. But his research showed that many small-business bankruptcies -- about 220,000 to 280,000 a year -- were being classified as personal bankruptcies.

All told, Lawless' ideas appeared in nearly 40 different publications that he was able to track, as diverse as the Hattiesburg American to Forbes magazine. The New York Times even wrote an editorial in October promoting his viewpoint that hurricane victims needed to be exempted from some of the new restrictions to filing bankruptcy.

The media attention has been somewhat embarrassing, the modest Lawless said, but he's glad if it's getting the policy issues out to the public and those with the power to change the laws for the better.

"I would have traded the publicity for an actual change in the (bankruptcy) law," Lawless said.

Morgan, meanwhile, is overjoyed. Other law professors have made the national press before, but never to this extent.

"It's great national exposure for the law school and the university to have a professor like Bob Lawless," Morgan said. "... He's making a real contribution to this important policy debate."

Lawsuit settled

Nevada System of Higher Education officials paid out $49,000 in November to settle an age discrimination suit filed by a former UNLV employee in March 2003.

James Grant, 57, formerly the ticket-office manager at the Thomas & Mack Center, alleged in the lawsuit that he was fired because of his age and because he objected after he witnessed his supervisors discriminate against others on the basis of age and gender. The 16-year employee was ultimately replaced by a younger worker.

Daniel Marks, Grant's attorney, said he believed the case was a fair resolution and that it vindicated his client's position, as Grant believed the university was trying to "systematically get rid of older workers."

UNLV lawyer Richard Linstrom said that in consulting with the attorney general's office, they concluded that settling the case was in the university's best interest.

The Thomas & Mack management has since been restructured from a free-standing entity within the university to reporting to the athletic director, Linstrom said.

Prize event

UNLV English department chairman Chris Hudgins was in Stockholm, Sweden, on Wednesday evening to celebrate the awarding of the 2005 Nobel Prize in literature to British playwright Harold Pinter.

Pinter invited Hudgins to the Nobel Laureate Awards Ceremonies because of Hudgins' articles about the famous playwright, best known for "The Birthday Party," "The Caretaker," "The Homecoming" and "Betrayal," Hudgins said in an e-mail prior to leaving for Stockholm.

Hudgins wrote his first article on one of Pinter's plays in 1978, he said, and has written 17 others since. Hudgins has often interviewed or dined with Pinter and Pinter's wife, historian Lady Antonia Frasier, over the years.

Pinter, suffering from cancer, was unable to attend the ceremony and gave his lecture via videotape.

Christina Littlefield can be reached at 259-8813 or at clittle@ lasvegassun.com.