Other law students selected for clerkships are Susan Warner, who will clerk for Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Jacksonville; Joshua Curry, who will clerk for Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Timothy, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Pensacola; and Yelizaveta (Liz) Batres, who will clerk for Judge Barry J. Stone, 4th District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach.

The state and federal court systems offer invaluable experiences for law students and graduates. Keep your eye out for upcoming programming in March about the federal judicial clerkship system, staff attorney positions, and other career paths in our judiciary.

“I didn’t come from a family of lawyers, I didn’t know what it meant to be a litigator, I didn’t know what it meant to be a transactional attorney, I didn’t know anything about the law, really,” she said. “So, I came here with a very open mind, not with any pre-set objectives, other than obtaining a law degree.”

A law degree in itself, she thought, would open up a lot of opportunities. And when those opportunities came, Cathey seized upon them. Among her activities while in law school, Cathey was active in the Black Law Students Association, an involvement that eventually helped lead her to landing her first job.

Early in her second semester, she attended an Alumni Reunion Weekend, held in conjunction with a meeting of the Florida Chapter of the National Bar Association, where she met an attorney at a reception at the Harn Museum. That attorney turned out to be the hiring partner at the Trenam-Kemker law firm in Tampa. Cathey followed up that meeting with a letter and resume and later that semester interviewed with the firm, eventually landing a summer position.

After earning her law degree, Cathey was hired as an associate at the firm, and later worked at the national firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon.

While in private practice, Cathey represented employers throughout the country in various matters, including claims of unlawful discrimination, issues involving the Family and Medical Leave Act, and contract claims. Today, she is an assistant general counsel for UF specializing primarily in labor and employment matters.

In many communities that are experiencing intense growth pressures and that contain a shrinking inventory of developable parcels, golf courses are being targeted for residential, commercial, and mixed-use projects. Local government officials often find themselves in the middle of heated battles between neighboring residents, golfers, builders, and environmental and conservation groups.

“It’s a national phenomenon,” said the symposium’s organizer, UF Law Professor Michael Allan Wolf, Richard E. Nelson Chair in Local Government Law at the Levin College of Law. “It raises some very fascinating questions about the role of local government, neighborhood organizations, and thelimits of zoning and planning.”

In some areas, such as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Wolf explained, the perception is that developers built too many golf courses, and they are being converted to other uses. In high growth areas such as South Florida, golf courses are looked at as prime, undeveloped parcels by real estate developers.

“Private golf course owners often are finding it tough to stay in the golf business. and so they’re willing to sell out to developers.”

Symposium presenters will survey national trends in golf course conversions; review the pertinent case law; explain the perspectives of, and special challenges facing, attorneys representing developers, neighbors, and local governments; debate the legitimacy of the use of eminent domain to take a golf course; explore relevant conservation easement and covenant law concepts; discuss environmental aspects of golf course operations and conversions; and examine special Florida law concerns and the potential for linking conversions to the provision of affordable housing, open space, and other public benefits.

More often than not, Wolf said, golf courses are being converted into residential properties. “You have different groups that are potentially opposed to this,” he said. “Often you have neighbors and neighborhood organizations that are unhappy that there’s going to be increased congestion, and loss of the golf course if they happen to belong to it.”

The conversions can create headaches for local government officials who have to make zoning decisions and are caught between residents who want to keep the golf course on the one side and developers who want to build homes on the other. Environmentalists could go either way on an issue like this, Wolf said. While they are often opponents of golf courses because of the practices that they perceive to be bad for the environment, the prospect of bringing in thousands of new residents to an area who are going to be watering and fertilizing their lawns, and increasing traffic doesn’t make them happy either.

To facilitate discussion, Wolf has brought in attorneys who have represented all the competing forces in this issue—neighbors, developers, and local governments. In addition, the symposium will include local and national experts on zoning to discuss planning considerations. A consultant from the National Golf Foundation will discuss conversions taking place throughout the country, and a national director with the United States Golf Association will discuss its program to develop courses in an environmentally friendly way.

Several law professors also will participate, including Eric R. Claeys, assistant professor of law at the Saint Louis University School of Law, who will debate Wolf on the use of eminent domain by a locality to take a golf course. Nancy A. McLaughlin, professor of law at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law, will discuss the use of conservation easements, and UF Law student Steven Wernick will discuss some of the court cases related to golf course conversions.

The event is not open to the public, but is free to UF Law students and faculty, who can find the regisration form at http://www.law.ufl. edu/news/pdf/NelsonSymposium07.pdf, to be turned into Barbara De- Voe in the dean’s office. This is the sixth symposium honoring Richard E. Nelson–who served with distinction as Sarasota County attorney for 30 years–and Jane Nelson, two loyal UF alumni who gave more than $1 million to establish the Richard E. Nelson Chair in Local Government Law, which sponsors the annual event.