Professor Lisa T. Alexander
Professor Thomas W. Mitchell
Texas A&M University School of Law’s new Program in Real Estate and Community Development Law, the “Program,” will be hosting its first Real Property Law Schmooze on Feb. 2-4, 2017. 
The Program is co-founded and co-directed by Aggie Law Professors Lisa T. Alexander, who has a joint appointment in Texas A&M University’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, and Thomas W. Mitchell, who has a joint appointment in Texas A&M University’s Department of Agricultural Economics.
The Program seeks to ​generate innovative research and create curricular offerings. It also seeks to develop policy solutions to meet both urban and rural development challenges in the 21st century. Its mission is to understand the evolving role of law in these developments and to design novel legal strategies to enhance both equity and efficiency in urban and rural redevelopment.
“America is experiencing an increasing urban and rural divide,” Alexander said. “This rift took center stage in the recent election.”
“As urbanization becomes the dominant world migration pattern over the next 50 years, the law will play a central role in determining how rural areas retain their vitality and sustainability, as well as how urban centers can equitably, efficiently and sustainably accommodate the urban influx,” she said. 
The Program is one of the few law school programs to focus on both urban and rural real estate, housing, land use, and community development law challenges.
The Real Property Law Schmooze will be the first event sponsored by the Program. The Schmooze will afford property law scholars the opportunity to share unpublished works-in-progress or early-stage ideas with other leading property law scholars at Texas A&M University and beyond. 
In its inaugural year, the Real Property Law Schmooze will feature approximately 20 legal scholars from southern law schools in the U.S. In future years, the Schmooze will extend invitations to scholars throughout the U.S. and abroad, based upon topics or regions. The keynote speaker this year will be Lee Anne Fennell, Max Pam Professor of Law, Co-director of the Kreisman Initiative on Housing Law and Policy, and Ronald H. Coase Research Scholar at the University of Chicago Law School. She will present her paper, “Searching for Fair Housing.” While at Texas A&M Law School, Professor Fennell will also speak for the Law and Social Science Program, convened by Professors Nuno Garoupa and Gary Lucas and hosted by Professor Milan Markovic.
“We are excited to host the kickoff event for Texas A&M University School of Law’s Program in Real Estate and Community Development Law. We look forward to building this new program by working with the fantastic group of professors on our faculty who are affiliated with the program, together with leading real property and community development practitioners in Texas and beyond. For each of our program’s activities, we intentionally are seeking to address property and community development issues both within urban and rural communities whether domestically or internationally. The preeminent property law scholars who will participate in this year’s inaugural Real Property Law Schmooze will present scholarship on just the range of property issues that reflects the scope of our Program’s mission,” said Mitchell. 
Eight other Aggie Law Professors are affiliated with the Program:

Professor Stephen R. Alton, Associate Dean for Planning, Compliance and Evening Programs (Real Property, Wills and Decedent’s Estates)
Associate Professor Vanessa Casado Pérez (Property Law, Natural Resources Law and Water Law)
Professor Gabriel Eckstein, Director, Program in Water, Energy & Food Security Law (Property Law, Water Law and International Environmental Law)
Professor Terri Helge (Estate Planning and Non-Profit Organizations)
Professor Luz Herrera, Associate Dean for Experiential Learning (Community Development Law and Small Business Law)
Dean Andrew P. Morriss, Anthony G. Buzbee Dean’s Endowed Chair (Property, Energy Law and International Financial Transactions) 
Professor Timothy M. Mulvaney (Property Law and Environmental Law)
Professor Aric Short, Vice Dean (Property, Fair Housing, and Lawyer Professionalism)

Click here for the Schmooze schedule.