AAMLE HOLDS ITS INAUGURAL ANNUAL MEETING

(published on March 31, 2023)

On February 22, 2023, AAMLE members gathered at the University of Houston Law Center for the Academy’s first in-person meeting.  The Law Center is the spiritual home of AAMLE.  In the 1990s, while he was Dean of the Law Center and the leading expert on Mexican law in the United States, Stephen Zamora developed innovative programs to promote the cross-border collaboration of academics, judges and lawyers on issues of Mexican law and was a beloved and nurturing mentor to young academics and lawyers in the field, including current AAMLE members.

Beginning with a lunch meeting, the members discussed organizational matters and, in furtherance of AAMLE’s commitment to contribute to the understanding of Mexican law via scholarship, agreed to author and publish brief articles on Mexican law in 2023.  The group then toured the Law Center’s impressive new, multi-story building and met with Professor Julian Cardenas, Director of the Center for U.S. and Mexican Law – the first research center in any U.S. law school devoted to the independent, critical study of Mexican law.  Since the Center and AAMLE share common goals, the hope is that the two groups can collaborate in coming years on seminars, white papers and other scholarly endeavors on Mexican law.

AAMLE members Reynaldo Urtiaga and David Lopez then served as guest speakers in Professor Ignacio Pinto-Leon’s law school course “Introduction to the Law of Mexico.”  After opening the class with music by Juan Gabriel, the group discussed various aspects of civil codes in the Mexican legal system.

The meeting ended with AAMLE members attending a home game of the University of Houston’s top-ranked men’s basketball team.  Go Coogs!