Dru Stevenson, Professor of Law

  🏛️ New: The Complete Administrative Law Lecture Series is Now Public I am pleased to announce the public availability of the complete Administrative Law lecture series for the Fall 2025 semester. This series includes 46 new videos posted in the last seven months, covering the core principles of the administrative state and essential topics for the bar exam and legal practice. The videos cover the full spectrum of agency power, including rulemaking, adjudication, and the critical role of judicial review. As a Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law Houston (STCL), this is the definitive, up-to-date guide for current legal analysis. Why This Content is Essential Now (H2) The Supreme Court’s recent decisions have fundamentally reshaped the landscape of Administrative Law, making new, up-to-date analysis essential for students and practitioners alike. This series includes new videos focused on: ⚖️ Statutory Interpretation and Deference (H3) New analysis on the Chevron doct...

My latest academic article published - Revisiting the Original Congressional Debates About the Second Amendment - #2A Thanks to the editors at Missouri Law Review for editing/publishing it. Read/download here: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol88/iss2/9/

 I posted a new article about Operation Choke Point on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4292272  Operation Choke Point: Myths and Reality

Check out my new post on the Second Thoughts blog here .

Ethical Issues with Lawyers Openly Carrying Firearms    St. Mary’s Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics (Forthcoming) December 18, 2019 Abstract Ethical concerns arise when lawyers openly carry firearms to adversarial meetings related to representation, such as depositions and settlement negotiations. Visible firearms introduce an element of intimidation, or at least the potential for misunderstandings and escalation of conflicts. The adverse effects of openly carried firearms can impact opposing parties, opposing counsel, the lawyer’s potential clients, witnesses, and even judges and jurors encountered outside the courtroom. The ABA’s Model Rules of Professional in their current form include provisions that could be applicable, such as rules against coercion and intimidation, but there is no explicit reference to firearms. Several reported incidents with lawyers and firearms have occurred in recent years, and as states liberalize their “open carry” laws, as well ...

Gun Violence as an Obstacle to Educational Equality   University of Memphis Law Review, Forthcoming Abstract:  This paper addresses the issue of school gun violence as both a result and a cause of ongoing educational inequality. First, gun violence and homicides have reached epidemic levels in recent years among minority teenagers in the United States, and the constant disruption, trauma, and fear that go along with such day to day violence significantly affect the educational and psychological development of urban youth, and thus their eventual educational and career achievements. Second, media attention and recent legislative initiatives to permit or require guns in schools (arming teachers, etc.) focus on the comparatively rare phenomenon of active shooter scenarios (school massacres or shooting rampages), which are predominantly a suburban phenomenon, while ignoring the causes and effects of routine, lower-fatality gun incidents in poorer urban schools. Measures ...

Dec. 18, 2019 - forthcoming in Penn State Law Review Smart Guns, the Law, and the Second Amendment   https://ssrn.com/abstract=3500570   Abstract:  Smart guns, which originally meant personalized guns that only the owner could fire, had a false start as a promising new technology several years ago. Nevertheless, policymakers have shown renewed interest in the wake of highly publicized incidents of gun violence, as well as advances in technology. The first generation of smart guns foundered on problems with the reliability of the technology, as well as a legislative misstep that would have banned all other guns as soon as smart guns appeared in the retail market, triggering massive boycotts of certain manufacturers and dealers, and a subsequent abandonment of the project by the gun industry overall. Newer technologies, however, such as improved biometric grip identifiers, precision-guided rifles that rarely miss, blockchain or “glockchain” automated tracking, ...

I have a new article draft posted on SSRN:  GOING GUNLESS   photo by  Maria Lysenko Stevenson, Drury D., Going Gunless (July 13, 2019).  Available at SSRN:  https://ssrn.com/abstract=3419585 Abstract Firearm policy in the United States is subject to longstanding political gridlock; victories and losses for each side of the issue run neck-and-neck. This Article inverts the problem and proposes a system for voluntary registration and certification of non-owners, those who want to waive or renounce their Second Amendment rights as a matter of personal conviction. The proposed system is analogous to both the registration of conscientious objectors during wartime conscriptions, and the newer suicide prevention laws whereby individuals can add their names to a do-not-sell list for firearm dealers – though the proposal made here is broader and more permanent. Voluntary registration, with official certification, would serve three important purposes. First, ...

The best way to prepare for the MPRE, besides the obvious review of the ABA's Model Rules, is to do a LOT of MPRE-style practice questions. This book has more practice questions than any other book on the market (even more than the BarBri/Themis/Kaplan books), and it covers more of the rules and exceptions:  https://www. amazon . com /dp/ 1790544084/ I have also authored the  Glannon Guide for Professional Responsibility  that has around 230 questions, with explanations following each one and chapter introductions (overviews of a group of rule provisions).  The explanations are helpful, I think, but a simple hint about the operative rule provision is usually all you need to understand why an answer was correct and the other options were wrong. 

Codes of legal ethics vary state by state, but most draw heavily from the ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct.  The ABA has revised Rule 1.6 (duty of confidentiality) in recent years, adding or clarifying exceptions, and states have been adopting these revisions very gradually, leading to many splits between states about when a lawyer can, or must, divulge confidential client information.  I have a new  article on SSRN  criticizing the confidentiality rules from a variety of angles:  Against Confidentiality .   Feedback is welcome!  Here is the abstract: Confidentiality rules form an important part of the ethical codes for lawyers, as a modern, expansive extension of the traditional attorney-client privilege doctrine.  The legal academy, judiciary, and practitioners generally agree on the conventional wisdom that strict confidentiality rules are necessary to foster client-lawyer communication, thereby providing lawyers with i...

My STCL colleague  Derek Fincham  has a new article on SSRN entitled  The Parthenon Sculptures and Cultural Justice , which I recommend to my readers - it's a very interesting subject.  Here is the abstract: From government and philosophy to art drama and culture, the ancient Athenians, as most everyone knows, gave future generations so much. Yet the pinnacle of their artistic achievement, the Parthenon, remains a damaged and incomplete work of art. 2012 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the last removal of works of art from the Parthenon. That taking was ordered by an English diplomat known to history as Lord Elgin, and it reminds us that cultures create lasting monuments. But not equally.  Cultures which remove the artistic achievements of other nations have increasingly been confronted with uncomfortable questions about how these objects were acquired. Nations of origin are increasingly deciding to press claims for repatriation of works taken long ...

I keep hearing other law profs say that the peer review system is vastly superior to the law review system for academic articles, and I always wonder if they really know much about the problems with peer review academic journals...here is another reason why I like the law review system better:  Journals' Ranking System Roils Research .     The article is about scientific journals rejecting papers due to excessive citations to articles in rival journals. The rejection is apparently for the crass, strategic purpose of preventing rival journals from getting more citations and thereby climbing in the rankings of "scholarly impact" lists.

My writing project this summer is now taking shape as a draft manuscript, and is available for download on SSRN.  I would really appreciate current or former students, colleagues, and friends downloading it and giving me feedback on it, as I plan to spend the Fall revising it and then submit it to journals in February.  The title/link is Codification and Transaction Costs , and here is the tentative abstract: The consensus view in the academic literature has been that rules present lower transaction costs – in the form of information costs – for the courts and citizenry, when compared to standards. Rules are more specific and detailed, so there is less uncertainty and less need for sophisticated interpretation. At the same time, the prevailing wisdom holds, specific rules impose higher enactment costs for legislatures. Systematic codification, which became of universal feature of American statutes in the twentieth century, seems to invert this relationship, lowering transa...

This semester I am teaching Administrative Law and the Law & Economics Seminar at my institution (South Texas College of Law) - two courses I really enjoy.  I'm a little disappointed that the enrollment is so high - I have 81 students in Administrative Law, and I'm fairly certain there are not that many students interested in the subject (lack of interest from a large portion of the students makes teaching the course more difficult). I've noticed an inverse correlation of class discussion to the size of the class - we had active class discussions  last summer in my Administrative Law course, which had about 15 students, but so far this semester (two weeks in) most of the students sit in stone silence while I prattle on about the nondelegation doctrine and such. I am also teaching Administrative Law at the University of Houston Law Center, but classes don't start there until next week. For students wanting to find me in my office this semester, Tuesdays and Thurs...

New from the website In the Public Interest:  Arizona’s Corporate-Run Agency Gives Taxpayer Subsidies to Other Corporations but Little Information to the Public . Arizona replaced its Dept of Commerce last year with a public-private partnership called the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA). The ACA's board includes mostly private businessmen, not government employees. Its funding comes partly from taxpayer dollars, and partly from private donations given by local corporations.  Here's an excerpt: But this isn't just any agency. Its task is to try boosting the state economy by handing out taxpayer-financed subsidies to individual companies of its choosing. A new report by Arizona Public Interest Research Group Education Fund tallies up over $41 million in subsidies so far dispensed by 13 subsidy programs at the ACA. The annual amount could reach over $150 million next year, plus other publicly-financed loans and technical assistance. Arizona residents foot the bill for ...

Detroit Free Press has a new op-ed piece:  More people die from guns than car accidents in Michigan . Excerpt: “The idea that gun deaths exceed motor vehicle deaths in 10 states is stunning when one considers that 90% of American households own a car, while fewer than a third own firearms,” VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand said. “It is time to end firearms’ status as the last unregulated consumer product.”  Rand said her group’s state-by-state analysis compared gun and car deaths in 2009, the most recent year for which state-level data for both causes of death is available. Michigan reported 1,095 gun deaths that year — 10.98 per 100,000 residents — while recording only 977 deaths, or 9.8 per 100,000 residents, involving motor vehicles, including pedestrian accidents.  I found this unsurprising, and a fairly typical advocacy piece from the gun-control side.  Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy reports on this and adds these statistics: But ...

Here is the link to my new post on the Circuit Splits blog about the new article from my colleague Scott Rempell - New Article on Appellate Review of Immigration Decisions - Circuit Splits This article was our last assignment in our Abstract Club at my school - something else I need to write about soon.

Quod scripsi, scripsi * -  Should Law Schools Focus on Lawyering Skills? - Circuit Splits .  I've been wanting to write this for a long time. *  "What I have written, I have written."

A new essay in the California Law Review  by the Dean there (Christopher Edley, Jr.)discusses the history of American law schools - in terms of their mission - and predicts the direction things are heading.  VERY refreshing after reading so many posts on law professor blogs about how we need to revert  to being more like a trade school (teaching skills rather than theory).  I really liked the abstract: This Essay describes the changing role of American law schools throughout the twentieth century and proposes a vision for the future’s Great American Law School. Since the founding of Berkeley Law, the definition of the legal profession has progressed from an interior orientation, which focused predominately on trial courts and appellate advocacy, to an exterior orientation with wide consideration of other forms of lawyering. Along a second axis, legal pedagogy has progressed from a careerist orientation, which focused on case analysis and advocacy skills, ...

My latest article - forthcoming in Boston College Law Review - Standing as Channeling in the Administrative Age by Drury Stevenson, Sonny Eckhart :: SSRN We're looking for input and feedback, so download it and send us comments!