UF Moot Court Team members at the Oct. 21 regional competition

The Levin College of Law’s Justice Campbell Thornal Moot Court Team turned in an impressive performance Oct. 21 at the regional competition for The Thomas Tang National Moot Court Competition held at American University’s Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C.

Team members Beau Baker, Brad Barrios, Gina Civin, Vanessa Grant, Elizabeth Paulk, and Veronica Tafur, went head to head with moot court teams throughout the southeast at the competition. UF Moot Court members argued a case involving the REAL ID Act of 2005 and the Convention Against Torture. Grant and Tafur, coached by Paul Sodhi and Chris Dix, were named the overall winner of the competition. Barrios and Civin, coached by Nava Ben-Avraham and Natalia Medina, received second place overall and Best Brief. Baker and Paulk, coached by Kimberly Chamberlin and Alissa Lugo, received sixth place overall.

Barrios, Civin, Grant, and Tafur will represent the UF Moot Court Team and the Southeast Region at The Thomas Tang National Moot Court Competition, which takes place Nov. 9-12 in conjunction with the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Annual Convention in Philadelphia.

The UF Moot Court would like to thank Professors Joseph Little, Michael Siebecker, Leanne Pflaum, Mary Adkins, David Hudson, Pedro Malavet, Juan Perea, Patricia Thomson, and Henry Wihnyk, who volunteered their time to ensure the success at the competition.

The Thomas Tang National Moot Court Competition honors the late Judge Thomas Tang, a
champion of individual rights, an advocate for the advancement of minority attorneys, and an ardent supporter of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. Teams from throughout the country participate in the competition, with winners and runners-up from the six regional competitions meeting in the finals.

The current executive board of the committee consists of Bryon Carroll, chairman; Christine Garcia, vice-chair; Todd Rich, communications director; and Hema Persad, secretary. The student members of the committee include Lauren Cooney, Andre Hammel, Susan Warner, Tashiba Robinson, Jessica Lillesand, Adam Josephs, and Jordan Evert.

The faculty advisors are Teresa J. Reid Rambo, senior legal skills professor; Margaret Temple-Smith, senior legal skills professor; and Rachel E. Inman, associate dean for students.

For more information on the Honor Committee visit its website: http://www.law.ufl.edu/students/honorcommittee/

How did you come to concentrate on business law?

During law school, I thought I wanted to be a litigator. It wasn’t until my first summer clerkship that I learned business lawyers were not just drafters, but integrally involved in structuring and negotiating deals. That was very appealing to me.

How have you been able to influence the direction of your company?

Fortunately, lawyers in this company are wellthought of and function as integral members of each business unit. We constantly influence the direction of our company by providing input on a broad spectrum of issues in their earliest stages. Perhaps for this reason, we have an incredibly small amount of litigation for a company our size.

How are your duties and responsibilities different from what you anticipated?

I was originally hired as the TOUR’s intellectual property counsel and my duties expanded beyond that title within the first two years. The biggest surprise and one of the duties I find most enjoyable is the facilitation of internal company relations. We have many disparate groups (such as competitions, player relations, public relations/communications, television, marketing, etc.) that must function collectively, but often their interests are not aligned. I help find common ground.

Florida Basketball Ad Shot at UF’s Levin College of Law

University of Florida basketball players Lee Humphrey and Sha Brooks, pictured above, recently brought their game to the Rare Book Room at the Levin College of Law to shoot a commercial that will air on local television stations in the near future.

The commercial begins with Humphrey and Brooks dutifully doing their homework. Brooks then reaches over to her notebook and rips out a piece of paper. Quickly crumpling the paper into a ball, Brooks shows off her basketball shooting form and sinks it into a nearby garbage can.

Spying her, Humphrey takes the challenge and responds by making a shot one of his own. A shooting battle ensues until UF Women’s Basketball Coach Carolyn Peck opens the door, causing Humphrey and Brooks to rush back to their seats and try to convince Coach Peck that they’re really studying very hard.

At the end of the commercial, Coach Peck walks away with the garbage can—giving the players a look that indicates she knew all along that they were fooling around.

The 26-page presentation is available through a link on the college’s website, www.law.ufl.edu.

The 16 students are enrolled in the Florida Constitutional Law Seminar course taught by Overton, who retired as chief justice after 25 years on the state’s highest court and is now an adjunct professor at the law school.

The document is intended by the student authors as a non-partisan and objective presentation of the materials, and includes:

• Title of each amendment as it appears on the ballot

• Present constitutional provisions affected

• Ballot summary

• Full text of the proposed amendments

• Sponsors of the legislative or initiative process

• Brief commentary on each proposed amendment

• Notable supporters and opponents

“We have compiled a great resource for the law school and the citizens of Florida,” said Will Sexton, a third year law student and the project’s student editor.

“Our project will hopefully help to explain the complex and, at times, confusing Amendments that will appear on the November 7th ballot.”

Professor; Director of Environmental and Land Use Law Program; UF Research Foundation Professor

• Received $17,500 SNRE seed-funding grant for her proposal, “Next Generation Environmental Law: Incorporating Experience, Science, and Technology to Develop Sustainable Environmental Laws.” The purpose of the grant is to facilitate the development of a major grant proposal through support of preliminary research and organizing a symposium at UF.

Thomas Hurst

Professor; Sam T. Dell Research Scholar

• Presented paper, “Hedge Funds: The Need for Further Regulation” at the Cambridge Symposium on Economic Crime at Jesus College, Cambridge, England.

Michelle S. Jacobs

Professor

• Published article “Loyalty’s Reward—A Felony Conviction: Recent Prosecutions of High-Status Female Offenders,” 33 Fordham Urban L. J. 843 (March 2006).

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).

Barbara Bennett 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)

• Took part in a roundtable of experts from a wide range of disciplines convened by Rutgers University in New Jersey to debate the “Future of Childhood Studies.”

In the News

George R. “Bob” Dekle

Legal Skills Professor; Director, Criminal Law Clinic-Prosecution

• St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 20. Quoted in an article about the numerous measures attorneys like those representing alleged cop killer Alfredie Steele Jr. go through to effectively represent their client.

Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

Professor, UF Research Foundation Professor

• Long Island Business News, Oct. 20. Quoted in an article about the first plaintiff, Atlanta attorney Rafe Banks, awarded damages in a libel suit against a blogger.

•Lawyers USA, Oct. 23. Quoted in an article about the increasing amount of libel lawsuits brought against bloggers.

•P2PNet.net. Oct. 11. Quotes in an article about the $11.3 million in damages awarded to a Florida woman who filed a libel suit against a Louisiana woman who posted defamatory comments on a blog.

Diane H. Mazur

Professor

• MonstersandCritics.com, Oct. 23. Commented on U.S. General Caldwell’s statements, which implied that the recent rise in Iraqi insurgent violence was linked to midterm elections. She said the statements crossed over the line into political partisanship.

• United Press International, Oct. 23. Quoted in a story on comments by Brig. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, who said one reason why violence in Iraq is up was the midterm elections, Mazur said, “In my opinion, Gen. Caldwell’s statement crosses over the line into political partisanship.”

Jon L. Mills

Professor, Director of Center for Governmental Responsibility

• Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 2. Quoted in a story about possible illegality of proposed amendments to Seminole County’s constitution, which have come under criticism, even from members of the commission that drafted them.

Christopher Slobogin

Stephen C. O’Connell Chair; Affiliate Professor of Psychiatry

• St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 24. Quoted in story on Danny Rolling, he said his execution should not dissipate concerns over the major flaws in the system. “It’s going to continue as business as usual with very few executions, partly because … there are legitimate concerns about who deserves to be put to death.”

The NALP publication, Jobs & JD’s, Class of 2005, provides valuable employment and salary data. For example, it shows that Florida ranked fifth in terms of the number of entrylevel legal positions gained within the state, even finishing ahead of Washington, D.C.

A total of 1,877 new law graduates began their careers in Florida, of which 75.8% of the jobs went to graduates of Florida’s law schools. New York tops the list with 4,445 positions obtained in New York. California comes in second with 4,067 in-state positions. Texas is third with 2,204 in-state positions, while Illinois is fourth with 1,959 new legal positions.

If you plan to leave Florida upon graduation, the chart would provide a good reference point to determine the states that hire the largest number of out-of-state graduates such as Virginia, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Michigan, Indiana, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

Gainesville Has Lowest Salaries Across Florida

Jobs & JD’s, Class of 2005 also lists the mean starting salaries by city for law firm jobs taken by recent graduates, as follows:

1. $80,488—Miami

2. $72,778—Naples 

3. $68,941—Orlando

4. $67,299—Tampa

5. $64,609—Coral Gables

6. $64,571—West Palm Beach

7. $63,714—Pensacola

8. $62,752—Ft. Lauderdale

9. $59,700—Tallahassee

10. $59,608—Jacksonville

11. $59,400—Sarasota

12. $58,214—Daytona Beach

13. $57,500—Ft. Myers

14. $57,083—St. Petersburg

15. $55,833—Clearwater

16. $53,500—Lakeland

17. $52,923—Boca Raton

18. $51,550—Hollywood

19. $46,658—Plantation

20. $38,800—Gainesville

The mean entry-level salary for Atlanta firms was $92,847 and for Washington, D.C. $118,165.

How the Grads Found Their Job

For those graduates who received their offer of employment after graduation, the most common sources of employment were described as:

• 28.8% a result of a targeted mailing or other self-initiated contact with the employer.

• 20.1% a referral by a business colleague, professor, friend, or relative

• 19.8% a response to a job posting listed by their career services office

If you wish job search assistance or cover letter or resume review, please schedule an appointment with one of Career Services knowledgeable, attorney counselors.

Employment Advisory to Students

While gaining legal experience provides a meaningful way to enrich your legal education and enhance your legal credentials, it is critical that law students recognize that there are limits to the work they legally can perform without violating the Florida Bar Rules prohibiting the unlicensed practice of law. Law students and law graduates, yet to be sworn in to the bar, may not practice law nor provide legal advice.

Chapter 10 of the Rules regulating the Florida Bar regulates the unlicensed practice of law. These rules caution that while nonlawyers can “engage in limited oral communications…reasonably necessary to elicit factual information … to assist a person in the completion of blanks on a legal form approved by the Supreme Court of Florida… and inform the person how to file the form,” the nonlawyer preparer/assistant must include on the document a signed, written disclosure as stated in Florida Bar Rule 10- 2.1(a)

A law student or law graduate who is certified by the Supreme Court of Florida as a certified legal intern (CLI) pursuant to Chapter 11 of the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar, may represent certain individuals in limited circumstances while performing under the supervision of a Florida licensed attorney in good standing. The only mechanism for becoming a CLI is to register for and participate in certain clinical programs offered by the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

The Florida Bar possesses the authority to investigate UPL (Unlicensed Practice of Law) complaints and to prosecute these cases. Please ask before you act. The Florida Bar’s UPL Division can be reached at (850) 561-5840 or check with your professor about whether an act you are considering would constitute the unlicensed practice of law.

Named in honor of Professor Walter O. Weyrauch, internationally known for his work in foreign and family law, this year’s lecture will feature speaker David Meyer of the University of Illinois, a leading scholar in family law and constitutional law. Meyer’s lecture is titled “Palmore Comes of Age: The Place of Race in the Placement of Children.“

“We are delighted that our colleague Walter Weyrauch has agreed to allow the Center on Children and Families to name an annual lecture in his honor,” said UF Law Professor Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, David H. Levin Chair in Family Law and director of the Center on Children and Families.

“For 40 years, Walter has made his mark as a teacher, scholar and role model of intellectual vigor and creativity to hundreds if not thousands of students at UF. We are proud to have the lecture series named after such a distinguished and admired colleague.”

A reception in the Schott Courtyard will follow the lecture. Weyrauch came to the United States from Germany in 1952 and joined the UF law faculty in 1957 as an associate professor of law. Today, he is a distinguished professor of law and Stephen C. O’Connell Chair at the law school, honorary professor of law at Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Frankfurt, Germany, and editor of the American Journal of Comparative Law.

Weyrauch has taught business organizations, comparative law, conflict of laws, contracts, family law, law and society, legal counseling and philosophy, multinational corporate enterprise and autonomous informal lawmaking. He has been honored with the Golden Doctor Diploma from the University of Frankfurt Faculty of Law, the Florida Blue Key Distinguished Faculty Award, and the Legislative Professional Excellence Program Award. He was named Teacher of the Year in 1984.

Weyrauch has authored numerous books, including Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Tradtins and Culture (2001), and co-authored the text for his family law course, Cases and materials on Family Law: Legal Concepts and Changing Human Relationships. His 50-plus monographs, articles and review essays have been published in the Stanford Law Review, Florida Law Review, Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review and American Journal of Comparative Law, among others.

 Meyer’s recent articles have appeared in the University of Chicago Legal Forum, Minnesota Law Review, UCLA Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review, among other journals. He is a frequent participant in symposia and conferences and has presented papers in Europe, Canada, and throughout the United States.

Meyer received his B.A. in History with highest honors and his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Michigan, where he also served as editor-in-chief of the Michigan Law Review. He clerked for Judge Harry T. Edwards on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Byron R. White on the United States Supreme Court. He also served as a Legal Advisor to the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague and practiced law in Washington, D.C., and Chicago before joining the Illinois faculty in 1996.