Sharon Fenigan

Matthew J. Festa
Assistant Professor of Law

Education
BA, University of Notre Dame
M.PA., Murray State University
MA, Vanderbilt University
JD, Vanderbilt University Law School

Email: mfesta@stcl.edu

Phone: 713.646.1857

Office: 757T

Bio
Matthew J. Festa teaches Property Law and Land Use Management.  Before joining the faculty of South Texas College of Law as a visiting assistant professor in 2007 he taught at the University of Georgia School of Law.  His scholarship focuses on land use law, government regulation, and legal history.  Professor Festa has practiced in the Houston office of the law firm Locke Liddell & Sapp and has served as a law clerk to judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.  He attended Vanderbilt University Law School, where he was the Executive Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review.  Professor Festa also serves in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, U.S. Army Reserve.

Areas of Expertise:  property law, land use management, civil procedure, legal history, and national security.

Bibliography:

ARTICLES

  • Applying a Usable Past: Understanding the Use of History in Law, 38 Seton Hall Law Review __ (forthcoming Jan. 2008), available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1004643.  

  • Dueling Federalists: Supreme Court Decisions with Multiple Opinions Citing The Federalist, 1986-2007, 31 Seattle University Law Review 1 (2007), available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1004630.

  • Note, The Origins and Constitutionality of State Unit Voting in the Electoral College, 54 Vanderbilt Law Review 2099 (2001), available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1004665.  

PRESENTATIONS

  • “The Relationship between Environmental Regulation and Inverse Condemnation: What is the Individual Cost for Environmental Protection?” Red Clay Conference in Environmental Law, 2007.

  • “The Role of Property Rights in Founding-Era Republicanism,” Southwest Social Science Association, 2006.

  • Discussant, “Latino History,” Southwest Social Science Association, 2006.

  • “The Neglected Role of Property Rights in the Founding-Era Vision of the Common Good,” Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities (ASLCH), 2006.

  • “The Underestimated Role of Property in Founding-Era U.S. Republican Ideology,” New England Historical Association, 2005.

  • “Applying a Usable Past: Historical Evidence in the Law,” annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities (ASLCH), 2005.

  • Chair & Discussant, “Legal & Economic History,” Interdisciplinary Session, Southwest Social Science Association, 2005.

  • “Conflicting Opinions Citing The Federalist on the Rehnquist Court, 1986-2005,” Southwest Political Science Association, 2005.

  • “The Application of a Usable Past,” Southwest Historical Association, 2005.

  • “Dueling Federalists,” Southern Political Science Association, 2005. 

  • “The Application of a Usable Past: Toward a Reconciliation of the Professional Standards of History and Law,” biennial meeting of The Historical Society, 2004.

  • “Private Rights and the Public Good: The Northwest Ordinance, Property Law, and Constitutionalism in the Early Republic,” annual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), 2003.

  • “Dueling Federalists and Judicial Politics: Rehnquist Court Cases with Multiple Uses of The Federalist, 1986-2003,” Georgia Political Science Association, 2003.

  • “The Northwest Ordinance, Property Law, and the Political Economy of the Early Republic,” Great Lakes History Conference, 2002.

  • “The Role of Property Rights in the Northwest Ordinance,” Ohio Valley History Conference, 2001.

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