He was also her good friend. So when Ginsburg was asked to help the Levin College of Law dedicate the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom, there was never any doubt that she would be there.

“Today’s ceremony is one I could hardly miss,” Ginsburg said, “for I held in highest esteem and deepest affection the man whose name this classroom now bears, Chesterfield Smith.”

At the Sept. 21 dedication Ginsburg recalled the first time she met Smith in 1972 at an ABA Journal board meeting in Portland, Maine. After hearing Smith speak, Ginsburg’s first impression was that he was “something of an ‘L’enfant terrible.”

Later, she said, she came to appreciate how Smith’s provocative style suited his purpose. Smith was never satisfied with the status quo if there was room for improvement, she said.

“Lawyers tend to be cautious–more than a few are what I call ‘no persons’–advisers who keep their clients safe by avoiding things yet untried,” Ginsburg said. Chesterfield was not of that stripe. He was instead a most positive ‘yes person.’ If asked can we do this or that, Chesterfield would invariably say ‘Yes we can with one large proviso—this or that must be the right thing to do.’

“Whether with him or against him, lawyers agreed that Chesterfield Smith knew neither timidity, fear, nor ambivalence.”

A 1948 graduate of the UF law school, Smith was gift from the Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation Inc.

The dedication ceremony drew a star-studded audience that included Ginsburg, former ABA Presidents Martha Barnett and Talbot “Sandy”

D’Alemberte, former Florida Supreme Court Justices Stephen Grimes and Ben Overton, UF President Bernie Machen, Levin College of Law Dean Robert Jerry, and dignitaries from Holland & Knight.

Barnett recalled the first time she met Smith when he stopped by the UF Law Review office to say hello to some of the students editors. She couldn’t have even imagined then that Smith would one day become her good friend as well as her partner at Holland & Knight.

Smith would cherish the classroom, she said, because it’s about what he valued: “law, lawyers, professionalism, excellence, and a commitment to the future.”

“One of our partners recently said that Chesterfield Smith was the only person he ever met who lived up to his reputation,” Barnett said. “He was a living legend, and now thanks to all of you, and to so many others who could not be here in person today, we are part of something bigger than ourselves, and we have this vibrant, exciting, living memorial to continue his legacy and to inspire those students, faculty, visitors, citizens, to inspire those who walk through these doors to the same greatness that he achieved. If Chesterfield Smith were here today he would say to all of you, ‘Thank you and you did good.’”

One of the country’s most prominent lawyers, Smith’s legendary act came in 1973 when he was president of the American Bar Association. In what was dubbed the Saturday Night Massacre, President Richard Nixon fired Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal, prompting the nation’s attorney general, Elliot Richardson, and his top assistant to resign.

Almost immediately, Smith spoke out, telling the nation and the president, “No man is above the law.” He went on to lead the ABA’s effort to call for an independent counsel to investigate Nixon. His early voice of leadership altered history by becoming a catalyst in Nixon’s resignation.

Stunning as his call for Nixon’s impeachment was, Ginsburg said, Smith propelled the ABA forward in a no less significant way years earlier when he insisted that it would be the ABA’s obligation to assure that there would be a lawyer when needed for those unable to pay.

“By word and deed he urged first his own law partners and then lawyers everywhere to place community service at the center of their professional lives,” Ginsburg said.

On Friday, Sept. 22, Ginsburg spoke for about an hour in to hundreds of UF Law students, as well as faculty and staff, in the Schott Courtyard. He discussed everything from how she and her fellow justices interact with one another to the role of the judiciary.

At Friday’s dedication, Ginsburg recalled how Smith provided encouragement when he testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings when she was nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Chesterfield Smith devoted his extraordinary talent and enormous energy to the improvement of the legal profession, to making the profession more honorable, more responsible to the people law and lawyers serve. This mentor to the young and grand colleague to all enlisted countless co-workers in the quest for equal justice under the law. He pursued great causes with contagious exuberance and a style that could make even the most sober judge smile. He was in sum among the brightest, boldest, bravest, all-around most effective lawyers ever to be bred in Florida or the USA. My affection for him was unbounded.”

The dedication video and program are available online at http://www.law.ufl.edu/news/current/dedication.shtml.

Michael W. Gordon
John H. and Mary Lou Dasburg Professor
• Reappointed as the ABA Section on International Law Liaison to the American Law Institute.
• Organized a panel on “Parlatino to Owusu: Challenges to Forum Non Conveniens,” for the International Law Weekend annual program in New York City in October sponsored by the International Law Association.

Paul J. Magnarella
Affiliate Professor; Professor of Criminology and Law; Affiliate Professor of Anthropology, African Studies, and European Union Studies
• Published “Turkish-American Intellectual Exchange and Community Research in Turkey (1930-1980)” in current issue of 27 The Turkish Studies Association Journal 69-89 (2006).

Martin J. McMahon, Jr.
Clarence J. TeSelle Professor
• Made a CLE presentation, “Recent Developments in Federal Income Taxation,” at the 41st Annual Southern Federal Tax Institute, Sept. 18, Atlanta, Georgia (jointly with Prof. Ira Shepard).

Robert C. L. Moffat
Professor; Affiliate Professor of Philosophy
• Published “How Can Law Pave the Road to Perpetual Peace? What Law Does and What Law Does Well,” in Kant and the Problems of the Contemporary World (Justyna Miklaszewska ed., Krakow, Poland: The Jagiellonian University Press, 2006).

Walter O. Weyrauch
Distinguished Professor; Stephen C.O’Connell Chair; Associate Director, Center on Children and Families
• Spoke on Sept. 9 in Orange Park, Florida to members of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, on “Facts and Theory of Undercover Operations,” based on his evaluation of card files of the former Gestapo for the American Military Government in Frankfurt and the newly emerging German authorities in early 1945.

Barbara Woodhouse
David H. Levin Chair in Family Law; Professor; Director, Center on Children and Families and Family Law Certificate Program; Co-Director, Institute for Child and Adolescent Research and Evaluation (ICARE)
• Published two book chapters, “The Family Supportive Nature of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child,” and “The Changing Status of the Child,” in Jonathan Todres et al, The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: An Analysis of Treaty Provisions and Implications of U.S. Ratification (Transnational Publishers 2006); “Waiting for Loving:The Childs Fundamental Right to Adoption,” 34 Capital U. L. Rev 297-329 (2005); “Martyrs Media and the Web: Examining a Grassroots Children’s Rights Movement Through the Lens of Social Movement Theory,” 5 Whittier J. Child & Fam. Advoc. 121-154 (2005).

In the News

Gertrude Block
Lecturer Emeritus
• Featured on the cover story of the Sept. issue of the New York State Bar Journal, in an article titled, “Writers’ Block: The Journal Peeks Behind The Column to Meet One of the Nation’s Most Trusted Legal Writing Advisers.”

Christopher L. Peterson
Associate Professor
• Research in recent Ohio State Law Journal article on payday loans and the military was featured on the national ABC News on August 22.

Christopher Slobogin
Stephen C. O’Connell Chair; Affiliate Professor of Psychiatry; Adjunct Professor, University of South Florida Mental Health Institute; Associate Director, Center on Children and Families
• Appeared on CourtTV and radio about the Andrea Yates case.
• Quoted in USA Today in a front page story about expert testimony.
Barbara Woodhouse
David H. Levin Chair in Family Law; Professor; Director, Center on Children and Families and Family Law Certificate Program; Co-Director, Institute for Child and Adolescent Research and Evaluation (ICARE)
• USA Today, Sept. 12, 2006. Quoted in the story “Recent Legal Rulings Favor Grandparents” about courts increasingly siding with grandparents over visitation rights especially in the cases in which one of the parents is dead.

The Center for Career Services and Lexis recently co-sponsored a program on Out- of-State Job Searches. Assistant Director Samara Sarno discussed the challenges of conducting an out-of-area employment search and outlined search and marketing strategies. For example, students interested in clerking out of state next summer or gaining a position after graduation need to take steps NOW to be most competitive. The key to a successful out-of-state job search is to prepare early in your law school career and be resourceful.

•Timing: Check out the websites of law schools in your geographic area of interest and see if they list the firms who will be interviewing, along with the dates of OCI. To compete with the local applicant pool, you will need to target your mailing to reach those firms before or at the same time as the local OCIs are occurring.
• Also consider arranging an internship or volunteer opportunity for the summer in the city to get involved and make contacts. Government agencies often sponsor summer programs. These programs require independent research and typically have early application dates. A starting point can be the Government Honors & Internship Handbook available in the CCS.
• Be prepared to demonstrate your connection:  Assess how you will demonstrate your commitment or connection with the geographic area that you are interested in. Potential employers tend to be leery of out-of-area applicants and will be less likely to invest in that person absent a demonstration of ties to or an interest in the area. Let them know that you grew up in the area, or that you have relatives living there. Employers will be looking for your ties to the area on your resume and  cover letter as well as during the interview.
• Develop your network: Re-establish any ties you may have to the area.

Let them know you are interested in relocating to the area and ask them to keep you in mind if they become aware of opportunities or can share contacts. You also can contact CCS for the name of an alumni mentor in the area and make contact. Consider obtaining a student membership to the local bar association. Try to get on their mailing list for events or periodically check their website for news.

• Lexis Account Executive Bonita Young urges students to carefully research employers. Run a LexisNexis/Martindale Hubbell search using the search parameters of UF Law alumni, city desired, and perhaps practice area.  She also mentioned that students can access her custom-created quick links by city on the Lexis UF Law webcourse and even set up alerts to be notified of additions or changes to the search.
• CCS also has employer directories available such as Government Agencies and Public Interest Organizations, along with the NALP Directory of Legal Employers, 2006 Directory. While it is true that the NALP Directory contains predominantly large law firms, most firms have websites that commonly list their recruiting information and contacts. Employers routinely consider submissions from interested law students from outside of the area or from law schools where they do not visit campus.
• Conduct outreach: Schedule a visit over a break or during the summer.

If you are able to spend some time in the area, see if there are any scheduled Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminars, bar receptions, speaker programs or events that you can attend to meet practitioners. Look for volunteer judicial internships to enhance your credentials while bringing you in contact with the local bar. This also may provide a path to a coveted judicial clerkship upon graduation that can segue into a larger firm position upon completion of your term.

• The key is to begin early. You do not want to miss out on opportunities because you were unaware of the timing process.

Keeping OCI In Perspective

Fact: Most UF Law graduates did not obtain their employment through Fall OCI.
• Often cited means of obtaining post- graduate positions included:
• Referral by a business colleague, friend, relative, alumni, or school personnel or
• Iinitiated contact by a targeted mailing or
• Informational interview or
• As a result of networking.

Fact: The majority of Florida law firms are medium-sized and not just seeking students at the top of their class.
• Only 10 percent of all practicing lawyers nationally work at firms of more than 100 lawyers.

Fact: Small- and medium-sized law firms are less likely to participate in Fall OCI.
• Many legal employers hire on an “as needed” basis as opposed to the hiring cycle of large firms.

Fact: Different employers participate in Spring OCI and seek a broader range of students.
• More government employers interview in spring.

Fact: 80 percent of all current job openings are never advertised.
Fact: The best jobs do not always go to the best candidate. They go to the best job strategist. Persistence pays.
Fact: There are myriad job opportunties available to you beyond OCI. Be sure to attend the Beyond OCI: Exploring All Your Career Options program scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 26, in Room 285B at noon to learn more.