Longtime Houston businessman and Texas Democratic leader Billy Goldberg died this past weekend at the age of 90. The Chronicle story on Billy’s life and death is here.
Billy was one of the many colorful larger-than-life characters who I have had the privilege of getting to know while practicing law in Houston over the past 27 years. A well-known Democratic Party activist for much of his life, Billy was in his late 70’s when I first met him. By that time, he had put most of his political activities aside to concentrate on business interests.
Billy was a risk-taker in business, so he had his share of financial and legal challenges. Eight or nine years ago, when he was in his early 80’s, Billy called me to help him work out a particularly complex jumble of business and legal problems. After a long but delightful meeting in which Billy laid out his problems in between anecdotes about LBJ and John Connally — and reminding me of possible help that he could receive from Clinton Administration officials — I presented a couple of alternative strategies, one of which was simply to pull back and prepare for retirement:

“Billy, you’re in your early 80’s,” I reasoned. “This approach would allow you to retire comfortably. Doesn’t that make most sense at this point in your life?”
“No, Tom, I don’t think so,” replied Billy with a wry smile. “The way I see it, I’ve only got six or seven more years of really good income-producing potential before I think about retiring. I don’t want to waste that potential!”

Six or seven more “really good income-producing years” after the age of 80? I just hope I have a fraction of Billy’s energy if I reach my early 80’s! Rest in peace, friend.

University of Houston Law Center Dean Nancy Rapoport resigned yesterday. This Chronicle article on the resignation suggests that the resignation was prompted by a stormy meeting last week in which the Dean was criticized by students and faculty for, among other things, a drop by the UH Law Center of almost 20 places (from 50 to 69) over the past four years in U.S. News & World Report rankings of U.S. law schools. Christine Hurt over at Conglomerate provides perspective on Dean Rapoport’s tenure at UH.
I do not know the reasons for Dean Rapoport’s resignation, but if it is truly a result of criticism over the drop in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, then the critics ought to be ashamed of themselves. True experts in law school evaluation have long considered the U.S. News rankings as highly defective and misleading. University of Texas Law Professor Brian Leiter, who authors a much more well-reasoned and objective ranking of U.S. law schools than the U.S. News rankings, currently ranks the UH Law Center faculty as the second-best of Texas law schools (behind only UT) and better than the faculties of the law schools at SMU and Baylor, both of which are ranked higher than UH in the U.S. News rankings.

The Board of Regents of Texas Southern University voted Monday to terminate the employment of embattled TSU president Priscilla Slade for cause after an outside law firm’s report concluded that Slade and TSU’s former chief financial officer had violated TSU policy regarding reimbursement of hundreds of thousands of dollars of Slade’s expenses. The prior posts on the Slade affair are here.
Slade’s problems began in January after she had moved into a new home near Memorial Park. Slade billed TSU for $86,467 in home furnishings, $138,159 in landscaping services and $56,010 in security-related equipment for the new home. After regents questioned certain of the expenses, she reimbursed the university for the landscaping expenses, which Slade contends she always planned to pay but which TSU employees mistakenly paid. However, a report by Bracewell & Giuliani — the outside law firm that the board hired to conduct an investigation into Slade’s expenses — found that Slade authorized the landscaping work without knowing how she would pay for it and without prior approval of the board. The law firm concluded that Slade initially intended for the university to cover the costs.
Of course, it didn’t help Slade that TSU’s former CFO who actually signed the checks for the reimbursements to Slade has a criminal background stemming from passing hot checks several years ago. No one has explained to date how the former CFO got the position at TSU in the first place.
The DA’s office continues to investigate the matter.