“I am honored by the opportunity given to me to bring issues relating to students and education to the Democratic Party’s 2004 national platform,” said Koslosky, who will attend the Democratic Party Convention July 26-29 in Boston. “Issues such as Federal Pell Grants, scholarships and academic freedom are absolutely paramount in ensuring that every American, regardless of his or her background, is given the opportunity to receive a quality education. I believe the legacy of Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles calls us all to action to ensure that government’s educational policies aim to enable the young to realize their hopes, dreams and aspirations.”

Koslosky is a native of Merritt Island who earned his bachelor’s degree (finance, with highest honors) from UF in 2002 and started law school this semester. His Honor Society memberships include Beta Gamma Sigma, Golden Key, Morter Board Senior and Delta Epsilon Iota. He has earned numerous academic awards and honors and has been active in a long list of student and political organizations. He also has found time to publish articles in the University of Florida Journal of Undergraduate Research (“Formal Constitutional Structure and Macroeconomic Growth in Transition Economies,” May 2002) and Florida International Review (“Trans-Caspian Energy Relations in the Post-Soviet Era,” Winter 2002).

During a 2001 internship in the Washington, D.C. office of U.S. Senator Bob Graham, where he served on a taxation and finance legislative policy group, Graham encouraged Koslosky to become involved in local politics. Koslosky followed his advice, and joined the Alachua County Democratic Executive Committee. He has since worked on a number of campaigns, including Gainesville City Commissioner Warren Nielsen’s re-election bid last year, Bill McBride’s run for governor, Karen Thurman’s campaign for U.S. Congress and the Gore/Liberman campaign in 2000. He has served on the National Platform Committee for the College Democrats of America since 2001, and was chair of the City of Gainesville’s Arbor Day Celebration early last month.

Among other initiatives, Koslosky plans to push for more academic freedom in the classroom and an expansion of educational grant programs.

“After military service, I attended law school. My classmates and I were pleased to be joining the dedicated likes of characters such as those in To Kill A Mockingbird. Lawyers’ reputations were their advertisements.

“The public image of lawyering changed with the Supreme Court ruling that lawyers have a First Amendment right to advertise. A review of the soliciations in the Yellow Pages and on television — particularly in conjunction with the Bar’s attempt to improve the reputation and image of the profession — should lead laymen and lawyers alike to ponder the focus, the calling.

“Probably a third of today’s attorneys are still deeply concerned about civil, constitutional and human rights. In my experience, many more appear to be concerned primarily with Wall Street models of investments. The rights of others and dignity of humankind do not appear to be of major importance in this day and time.”

Education/Background

LL.M., Yale University; LL.M., University of Illinois; J.D. (Honors) and A.B., University of Georgia. Order of the Coif and member of Phi Beta Kappa. Georgia Bar member.

Joined UF College of Law faculty in 1962. Founding director, Montpellier University Summer Law Program, France; co-founder and lecturer, Center for Human Rights and Peace, Makerere University, Uganda. Honorary Fellow, Centre of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London.

Professeur au Centre de Droit du l’Entreprise, Montpellier. Has taught and/or lectured at Makerere University, Uganda; Escuela Libre De Derecho, Mexico City; Cambridge-Warsaw Program, Trinity College, England; University of Lodz, Poland; Baylor University; ABA OPAL Program at Princeton and Brown Universities; University of Natal Pieremaritzburg, South Africa; and U.S. Department of Treasury’s Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Glynco, Georgia. CEELI legal specialist and advisor to the Parliament and Constitutional Court in Kiev, Ukraine; consultant and technical advisor to the Juridical Council, Thailand; and consultant to the Attorney General, Indonesia. Speaker and delegate, 11th-21st International Symposiums on Economic Crime, Jesus College, Cambridge, England (cosponsored by Center for International Financial Crimes Studies). Delegate: Conference on Human Rights, Kiev State University, Ukraine; and International Constitutional Law Roundtable, Murten, Switzerland; Nairobi, Kenya; and United Nations Law of the Sea Conference, Accra, Ghana.

Publications include a five-volume treatise, Money Laundering Asset Forfeiture and International Financial Crimes (Oceana Press, N.Y., 1993-2002); and three-volume treatise, Cybercrime and Security (Oceana Press, N.Y.) (co-authored). Served on advisory board of the Financial Crime Review and Journal of Money Laundering Control, University of London. Active practice limited to appellate constitutional litigation.

What You May Not Know

Baldwin served in the Army and Marines. He spent two years at the University of Hawaii, where he played football, competed on the club Judo team, belonged to the Young Buddhist Association, and retreated to the “Bodhi Tree” for enlightenment prior to exams. He came to the University of Florida specifically because the dean promised he could teach and take civil rights and constitutional pro bono cases. He has argued in both Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts and lower courts in Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Alabama, New York, Pennsylvania and Louisiana, and worked as special state attorney. Law is a family business for Baldwin: his wife, daughter, son, son-in-law, niece and nephew are all UF College of Law graduates. (His young grandsons — Walker, Fletcher and Baldwin — are frequent visitors to Holland Hall.) His roots are deep in Georgia and Virginia, and his undergraduate major at Georgia was Civil War History

“Law is communication, so I advise students to take writing and speech courses. Get involved in extra-curricular activities, because you’ll learn so much from the interactions. Don’t stay in a shell, go out and be exposed to other people and cultures. My late friend, Chesterfield Smith, said, ‘You give something back, and you do so with pleasure.’ Money is important, but it’s a very narrow life if that’s your only pursuit. Mere accumulation of wealth is not what law is really about.”

— John Arthur Jones (UF LLB/JD 1949, With Honors), Partner, Holland & Knight. Jones volunteered for military service in 1940 and served until 1946, fighting in WWII. While a student at the UF College of Law, he was a Student Government law school representative; Blue Key member; Honor Court clerk; and Florida Law Review executive board member, case editor and articles editor. His case comment was published in the Review’s first bound volume in 1948.

Jones has practiced 54 years. He is Bar-Certified in Wills, Trusts and Estates, and is considered an expert in banking law, estates & trusts, real property and commercial law. In 1949, he joined the Tampa firm of Knight, Thompson, Knight & Bell, and made partner five years later. That firm, then named Knight, Jones, Whitaker & Germany, merged in 1967 with Holland, Bevis, Smith, Kibler & Hall, and became Holland & Knight. While serving in 1980 as general counsel for a large Tampa bank, Jones helped re-write Florida’s Banking Code as special counsel to the Florida House of Representative’s Commerce Committee. He has lectured at the Florida School of Banking and taught courses for the Florida Bankers Association for more than a decade.

He is a member and former chair of the Probate and Guardianship Forms Committee; chair of The Florida Bar’s Real Property, Probate & Trust Law Section and director of its Probate and Trust Law Division; a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers; an academician of the International Academy of Estate and Trust Law; and fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. He has received the highest rating in the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory and been listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law and The Best Lawyers in America. He has been honored with The Florida Bar’s Real Property, Probate & Trust Law Section’s “Robert C. Scott Memorial Award” (1985) and its “William S. Belcher Lifetime Professionalism Award” (2003), which was named for his late friend and law school classmate. Jones has joined with other members of the firm of Holland & Knight in donating $50,000 to the Florida Law Review endowment fund.