CENTER FOR CONSUMER LAW AT UH FOCUSING ON THE ‘RIGHTS’ STUFF
Professor Richard Alderman Continuing His Campaign to Keep the Public Informed

By Eric Gerber
Staff Writer

Richard Alderman has a consuming passion for consumer law.

Every day, questions roll in for the director of the University of Houston’s Center for Consumer Law. My neighbor’s tree fell and hit my garage -- who pays? Can the landlord raise my rent? How do you stop junk faxes? The hospital’s overcharging. This car’s a lemon. An insurance salesman misled me ….

There are as many as 50 inquiries a day – and those are just e-mails to the Web site. Then there are questions sent to the dozens of Texas newspapers that carry his weekly column and to the 14 television stations that air his “It’s the Law” segments. Not to mention thousands upon thousands of folks who have attended the twice-yearly “People’s Law School” programs offering legal guidance to the under-informed. And let’s not overlook his “Know Your Rights!” call-in shows on the PBS affiliate, KUHT, and his book of the same name. Or an educational course about everyday aspects of the law that’s distributed to 600 high schools.

While a good many volunteers have helped along the way, it’s Alderman who’s been leading the charge for nearly a quarter of century now.

Alderman, who holds the Dwight Olds Chair in Law at the UH Law Center, takes great pride in pointing out that “We are the only organization in the country that uses the resources of a major law school to help consumers.”

While this has been a continuing boon to the general public, Alderman concedes that “consumer law” itself doesn’t always enjoy the prestige within the legal community that it might.

“Frankly, it’s considered a stepchild at most law schools,” he said. “Consumer law is nuts and bolts stuff. Not very sexy, I guess. And it doesn’t offer the high-ticket financial benefits that other areas of the law do.”

But the importance of consumer law – and a public informed of its basic rights in this arena -- can’t be overestimated. “You just can’t exist in today’s society without it,” he said.

Along with the practical support the Center for Consumer Law provides the community, Alderman also approaches the issue on an academic level. The center publishes the Journal of Texas Consumer Law, a quarterly publication produced with the State Bar of Texas. And, for the first time ever, the center recently filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court (in the Green Tree v. Bazzle case, which dealt with consumer arbitration).

Additionally, in 2002, the center hosted the first-ever symposium devoted exclusively to the teaching of consumer law, with nearly four dozen or so professors from the United States, Canada and Japan in attendance.

A second edition is scheduled for May 2004 and Alderman is expecting even more international participants to attend.

But a principal mission for the Center for Consumer Law continues to be educating laypeople. As Alderman is fond of saying, “If you don’t know your legal rights, it’s the same as not having them.”
Asked to name the three biggest areas of misunderstanding, he answered without hesitation:

“The first has to do with getting out of a contract. Many people believe you have a three-day rule to back out on everything. You don’t. The second concerns marriage, especially custody and child support issues. The third has to do with debt collection – what do you really owe and what a bill collector can and can’t do to get it.”

Being informed about such matters is more important than ever, he said, since the consumer climate has been changing dramatically.

“Texas used to be a pro-consumer state, but that’s no longer true. During the past decade, the legislature and the courts have taken a more conservative line. The Deceptive Trade Practices Act has been weakened. Tort Reform has taken its toll. Special interest groups have been successful in protecting themselves from litigation,” Alderman explained.

As a result, the Center for Consumer Law and “The People’s Lawyer” are busier than ever.

“Legal services can be so expensive and, in many circumstances, not really necessary. We’re certainly not a substitute for having a lawyer when you really need one, but what people often want is just reliable information so they can make an informed decision. That’s what we’re offering them.”

For more information about the Center for Consumer Law, visit the Web site http://www.peopleslawyer.net/

For more information about Richard Alderman, including a color photograph, see his Faculty Profile at http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/.