Texas Tech Law Meet the Faculty Biographies

Professor Brian Shannon

Charles B. Thornton Professor of Law, 1988
Former Associate Dean, Academic Affairs (2001-2007)
(806) 742-3990 x259
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Admitted to practice in Texas.

In addition to his teaching duties, Professor Shannon serves on the Governor's Committee on People with Disabilities, having first been appointed in 2003. He also serves on the board of the Lubbock Regional Mental Health & Mental Retardation Center (immediate past chair) and is the Lubbock County delegate to the Dispute Resolution Center Advisory Board. He is also an elected member of the American Law Institute and was the 2008-09 President of the Lubbock County Bar Association. He has also served on the boards of directors of Advocacy, Inc., the Lubbock County Bar Association, NAMI-Texas, and the Texas Council of Community Mental Health & Mental Retardation Centers. He is also a past chair of the State Bar of Texas Disability Issues Committee and a former Council member of the State Bar ADR Section. He and Professor Dan Benson have co-authored four editions of the book, Texas Criminal Procedure and the Offender with Mental Illness, and he co-authored two editions of Rau, Sherman, & Shannon's Texas ADR & Arbitration Statutes & Commentary. In 2000, Shannon filed an amicus curiae brief at the United States Supreme Court in PGA Tour, Inc. v. Casey Martin. He served through appointment by the Lt. Governor on a task force in 2002-03 that re-wrote the state's criminal competency statutes. In 2004 he was awarded the Justice Frank Evans Award by the State Bar's ADR Section and was named the outstanding alumnus of Angelo State University. In both 2002 and 2008 he received the Outstanding Law Review Article Award from the Texas Bar Foundation, and he received the 2001 Mary Holdsworth Butt Award from the Texas Department of Mental Health & Mental Retardation for outstanding volunteer service. Shannon graduated first in his law school class. Before coming to Texas Tech, Shannon served as an attorney-advisor in the Office of the General Counsel to the Secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon, and practiced at the Austin office of the Hughes & Luce law firm.

Degrees

B.S., Angelo State University, 1979

J.D., University of Texas, 1982

Courses

Contracts, Law & Psychiatry, Property, and Criminal Law

Selected Publications

Texas Criminal Procedure & the Offender with Mental Illness: An Analysis & Guide. (4th ed., NAMI-Texas, 2008) (Co-author with Professor Daniel Benson); available at http://www.namitexas.org/resources/reading.html.

The Time Is Right to Revise the Texas Insanity Defense: An Essay, 39 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 67 (2007) (winner of the Texas Bar Foundation's 2008 Outstanding Law Journal Award).

Mental Illness, Your Client, and the Criminal Law: A Handbook For Attorneys Who Represent Persons With Mental Illness (2005) (co-author with Professor Daniel Benson, Texas Appleseed, and the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health); available at http://www.texasappleseed.net/pdf/hbook_MH_attorney_MentalIllness.pdf.

Dancing with the One that "Brung Us" – Why the Texas ADR Community has Declined to Embrace the UMA, 2003 J. Dispute Res. 197 (2003) (part of a symposium issue on the Uniform Mediation Act by the University of Missouri’s Journal of Dispute Resolution), available at http://www.attorney-mediators.org/uma.pdf.

A Drive to Justice: The Supreme Court's Decision in PGA Tour Inc. v. Martin, 1 Va. Sports & Ent. L.J. 74 (2001).

Confidentiality of Texas Mediations: Ruminations on Some Thorny Problems, 32 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 77 (2001) (winner of the Texas Bar Foundation’s 2002 Outstanding Law Journal Award) available at http://www.texasadr.org/umaconfid.pdf.

Rau, Sherman & Shannon's Texas ADR and Arbitration: Statutes and Commentary. (West Group, 2000). (Co-author).

Paving the Path to Parity in Health Insurance Coverage for Mental Illness: New Law or Merely Good Intentions?, 68 Col. L. Rev. 63 (1997).

The 1995 Revisions to the DTPA: Altering the Landscape, 27 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 1441 (1996) (co-authored with Senators Bivins & Montford, and Reps. Hunter, Junell, & Duncan).

Diversion of Offenders with Mental Illness: Recent Legislative Reforms, 59 Tex. B.J. 330 (1996).
Another Alternative: the Use of Moderated Settlement Conferences to Resolve Ada Disputes Involving Persons with Mental Disabilities, 12 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. 147 (1996).

Debarment and Suspension Revisited: Fewer Eggs in the Basket? 44 Cath. U. L. Rev. 363 (1995).

The Reach for Repose: Have the Texas Courts Gone Awry? 24 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 195 (1993).

The Brain Gets Sick, Too - the Case for Equal Insurance Coverage for Serious Mental Illness, 24 St. Mary's L.J. 365 (1993).

The Government-wide Debarment and Suspension Regulations after a Decade - a Constitutional Framework - Yet, Some Issues Remain in Transition, 21 Pub. Cont. L.J. 370 (1992).

The Administrative Procedure and Texas Register Act and ADR: a New Twist for Administrative Procedure in Texas? 42 Baylor L. Rev. 705 (1990).