Faculty Liasons: University of Houston Law Center

Before joining the UH Law Center, Professor Gidi taught for two years at the University of Detroit Mercy and for several years as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He also had extensive academic experience in the US, Brazil, Italy, and France.

Gidi currently serves as the Associate Reporter and Secretary to the American Law Institute / UNIDROIT project on Principles and Rules of Transnational Civil Procedure, a project geared to producing a uniform code of civil procedure for international litigation and arbitration. He also serves as a Co-Reporter in a project sponsored by the Ibero-American Institute of Civil Procedure to create a Model Code of Class Actions for Latin America.

Gidi has written books in Portuguese and Spanish and a number of articles in English and in other languages as well. He speaks Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, and English, and has working knowledge of French.

Professor Oldham received his J.D. in 1974 from UCLA, and came to the University of Houston Law Center as Associate Professor in 1980.

Professor Oldham has also been elected to the American Law Institute, and is an active member of the law faculty, serving on numerous committees. He is a recognized expert in community property, family law, partnership, agency and business organizations law. He has been chair of the AALS Family Law Section and is a member of the Board of Editors for the American Bar Association, Family Law Quarterly. I

n recognition of his accomplishments for the UH Law Center, Professor Oldham received the UH Excellence in Research and Scholarship Award in 2000.

Professor Sandra Guerra Thompson is a graduate of Yale University, where she earned a B.A. in Economics in 1985 and a J.D. from the Yale Law School in 1988. She served as an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney's Office where she practiced both trial and appellate criminal law from 1988-1990. She joined the faculty of the University of Houston Law Center in 1990. She teaches Criminal Law, Federal Criminal Law, Evidence, Criminal Procedure, Sentencing, and Prisoners' Rights and Prison Reform. She was also Director of the Mexican Legal Studies Program in 2000, and taught a course for that program called "Criminal Law Issues in U.S.-Mexico Relations." Professor Thompson has authored numerous articles on criminal law issues, focusing especially on drug sentencing, asset forfeiture and federal law enforcement. She has co-authored a treatise entitled, "The Law of Asset Forfeiture." Professor Thompson's service activities have included serving as the co-principal investigator for the University of Houston Law Center Keck Professionalism Initiative. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute and was appointed to the Board of Advisors for the American Law Institute's project entitled "Model Penal Code: Sentencing." She has served on the planning committee for the Houston Bar Association's Criminal Bench-Bar Conference. She is a long-standing member of the Board of Directors of the Hispanic Bar Association. She is a former Chair of the Criminal Justice Section of the Association of American Law Schools.

Professor Thompson is a frequent media commentator, both locally and nationally.

Professor Vetter is a leading expert on intellectual property systems as applied to software, with a particular emphasis on the free and open source software movement. An author of two book chapters and over a half dozen articles in these fields, he has presented two dozen times on these topics to academic and professional audiences since joining the academy in 2002 as a law professor at the University of Houston Law Center, and as a co director of the Law Center's Institute for Intellectual Property and Information Law (IPIL).

Professor Vetter received his B.S. summa cum laude from the University of Missouri in Electrical Engineering in 1987. He then worked in software for nine years in both technical and business capacities. His responsibilities included software design and review, product planning, support and distribution through international resellers, and various marketing matters. He worked with outside legal counsel on licensing, contractual, and intellectual property matters, including such matters as Year 2000 compliance, software licensing, patent protection, and issues related to establishing a corporate Internet presence and website. During these years, attending evening courses, he received his M.S. summa cum laude in Computer Science from the University of Missouri and his MBA summa cum laude from Rockhurst University.

He left full-time employment in 1996 to attend law school. He received his J.D. magna cum laude from Northwestern, serving on the Northwestern Law Review, and graduating in the top two percent of his class. He then practiced with Kilpatrick Stockton for two years in the firm's technology law group. During this time, he obtained registration to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office as a patent attorney. Next, he clerked for the Honorable Arthur J. Gajarsa on the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Professor Vetter joined the University of Houston Law Center faculty in 2002 as an Assistant Professor and as a Co Director of the Law Center¿s Institute for Intellectual Property and Information Law (IPIL). He received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor in the spring of 2008.

As an IPIL Institute Co Director, Professor Vetter arranges various annual events, including conferences and lectures involving intellectual property law professors from law schools across the United States. He has also been actively involved in a leadership capacity with the Association of American Law Schools, serving as Chair of the Section on Law and Computers. Professor Vetter regularly teaches the Patent Law course and the Intellectual Property Survey course at the Law Center. He also taught these courses as a visiting professor at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin during 2006 07. Additionally, he occasionally teaches Property, and regularly teaches International Intellectual Property, Internet Law and Licensing.

Additional details for Professor Vetter's background are available at: www.law.uh.edu/faculty/gvetter.

Professor Zamora earned a B.A. degree from Stanford University in 1966 and a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) in 1972, where he graduated first in his class and served as Chief Articles Editor of the California Law Review. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Houston Law Center in 1978, he practiced international law in Washington, D.C., first as an associate in the law firm of Clearly, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton, and then as an attorney with The World Bank. He has been a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in Mexico, and has been a visiting professor at Yale Law School and Fordham Law School. An expert on NAFTA, in 1996, Zamora served as a member of a dispute resolution panel that decided the first government-to-government dispute under NAFTA (U.S. v. Canada -- Dairy, Poultry and Eggs from the United States).

Professor Zamora is a member of the American Law Institute, of the American Society of International Law, and of the American Society of Comparative Law. In 2006, he received the highest distinction awarded by the Mexican government to a foreign national, the Order of the Aztec Eagle, in recognition of his work in promoting U.S. - Mexican understanding. He is the lead author of the book Mexican Law, published in 2004 by Oxford University Press, and has authored numerous articles and book chapters on international economic law, international banking law, international trade law (NAFTA), international monetary law, and Mexican law. Professor Zamora's areas of expertise include contracts, international banking law, international transactions, Mexican Law, and NAFTA.