UT Law - Faculty - Linda S. Mullenix

Linda S. Mullenix

Morris & Rita Atlas Chair in Advocacy

Education

PhD Columbia University
JD Georgetown University
MPhil Columbia University
BA City College of New York

Areas of Specialty

LINDA S. MULLENIX holds the Rita and Morris Atlas Chair in Advocacy at the University of Texas School of Law. Professor Mullenix holds M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University in political science and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the City College of New York. She received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and practiced appellate litigation in Washington, D.C. She has held appointments as a Supreme Court Fellow at the Federal Judicial Center; was a scholar-in-residence at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study and Conference Center in Italy; and also held the Fulbright Senior Distinguished Chair in Law in Trento, Italy. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard and Michigan Law Schools. Professor Mullenix has been a professor since 1974, teaching federal civil procedure, mass tort litigation, current issues in class action litigation, aggregate and class action litigation in a global context, and state class action procedure. She also has taught complex litigation, federal courts, conflicts, professional responsibility, and civil justice reform. In January 2012, Professor Mullenix was honored as a “Pathfinder 2012” by the Travis County Women’s Law Association "for her outstanding service to our legal communtiy and continued inspiration as a role model and trailblazer," which recognizes women in the community who “have used their law degrees in ways that inspire the rest of us.”

Professor Mullenix is an elected member of the American Law Institute, serving as the Associate Reporter for the Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, a consultative member of the Transnational Rules of Civil Procedure project and the Complex Litigation Project. In addition, Professor Mullenix is an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the Texas Bar Foundation, and the International Association of Procedural Law. Professor Mullenix is the author or co-author of seventeen books including Leading Cases in Civil Procedure (2d ed. 2012); Mass Tort Litigation (2d ed. 2008); Federal Courts in the Twenty-First Century (3d ed. 2007); State Class Action Practice and Procedure (2000); ALI Restatement Third, The Law Governing Lawyers (2000); Understanding Federal Courts (1998); and Moore's Federal Practice (2d and 3d Eds.). For over 20 years, Professor Mullenix has been a contributing writer for Preview of Supreme Court Cases and a regular columnist for the National Law Journal. She has written hundreds of articles published in The Chicago Legal Forum, Cornell Law Review, Georgetown University Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Stanford Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, Texas Law Review, and Vanderbilt Law Review, as well as numerous other journals. Courts throughout the United States have cited Professor Mullenix's articles on procedure and complex litigation.

Professor Mullenix has broadly served the profession in a number of capacities, including as Reporter for an ABA Task Force on Class Actions; Reporter for the Southern District of Texas, Civil Justice Reform Act; Reporter for the National Conference of Federal-State Judicial Relationships; Advisor, Texas Class Action Rules Subcommittee; and Advisor, National Center for State Courts, Study on Civil Discovery. Professor Mullenix has been an invited participant numerous conferences including the ABA Conference on the Future of Class Action Litigation in America; the Symposium on Cutting Edge Issues in Class Action Litigation, The Legal Forum, University of Chicago; the Class Action Conference, Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure; the Gulf States Class Action Symposium; the University of Pennsylvania Symposium: Mass Torts; the ABA Class Action Institute; the Mass Tort Working Group, Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure; the Special Study Conference on Federal Rules Governing Attorney Conduct, Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure; the Research Conference on Class Actions, Institute for Judicial Administration and N.Y.U.; the Conference on Civil Procedure and the Future of the Federal Rules, Southwest Legal Foundation; and the National Mass Tort Litigation Conference. She has served as a faculty member for the Annual Conference on Complex Litigation and Resolution of Class Action Litigation, and has delivered lectures relating to class action litigation in Austria, Canada, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Brazil.

Recent Publications

Mass Tort Funds and the Election of Remedies: The Need for Informed Consent [Symposium 2012], 31 Review of Litigation 833 (2012).
Dubious Doctrines: The Quasi-Class Action, 80 University of Cincinnati Law Review 389 (2012).
Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute: The Titanic of Worst Decisions [Symposium: The Worst Supreme Court Case Ever?], 12 Nevada Law Journal 549 (2012).

Full list of publications…

Recent Activities

Tarlton Talks: A Tale of Two Funds

November 9, 2011

University of Texas School of Law

Professor Mullenix gave a Tarlton Law Library talk to University of Texas School of Law students, faculty, and law library associates concerning her research on fund alternatives to resolving mass tort litigation. Her talk focused on a comparative discussion of the World Trade Center Victims' Compensation Fund, and the recent BP Gulf Coast Claims Facility. The Tarlton Law Library at the UT Law School sponsors faculty member talks to acquaint students and the broader academic community with the ongoing research projects of various faculty members.
Commentator, Faculty Colloquium with Ken Feinberg

October 3, 2011

University of Texas School of Law

Professor Mullenix participated as a commentator in a faculty colloquium featuring Kenneth R. Feinberg, the special master administering the World Trade Center Victims' Compensation Fund, on October 3, 2011, at the law school. Feinberg discussed his work in a presentation entitled, “Unconventional Responses to Unique Catastrophes: Tailoring the Law to Meet the Challenges.” In his talk, Feinberg discussed his career experience, how he approaches his work, and the ethics of putting a “price tag” on a human life. Feinberg was selected by the Obama Administration as Administrator of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, the $20 billion fund established in the wake of the 2010 British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In 2009, he was appointed Special Master for Troubled Asset Relief Program Executive Compensation, where he determined reasonable compensations for senior corporate officials receiving government bailouts. Feinberg served as Special Master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 and managed claims for the Virginia Polytechnic Institute’s Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund following the 2007 shooting. Feinberg also orchestrated the Alternative Dispute Resolution Program, which resolved insurance claims arising out of Hurricane Katrina and other hurricanes in the Gulf region for Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and Zurich Insurance Company. He is the author of What is Life Worth? The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11. Professor Mullenix has written extensively about mass tort litigation, the World Trade Center Victim's Compensation Fund, and most recently about the Gulf Coast Claims Facility administered by Mr. Feinberg. Also commenting on Feinberg's presentation was Prof. Dave Robertson. Feinberg's visit to the law school was sponsored by the Center for Global Energy, International Arbitration, and Environmental Law and by the Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution.
Speaker

September 16, 2011

Seattle University School of Law

Professor Mullenix presented a paper: "The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Supreme Court's Summary Judgment Trilogy: Much Ado About Very Little," at a colloquium sponsored by the Seattle University School of Law, on: "The 25th Anniversary of the Summary Judgment Trilogy: Reflections on Summary Judgment." The article will be published in the University of Loyola- Chicago Law Review. The keynote speaker at this colloquium was the Hon. Judge Lee Rosenthal, United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and former Chair of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules.