• Elected to serve on the Board of Trustees for the College of Law Practice Management. He was inducted into the college in 2005.
• The Legal Technology Institute at the Fredric G. Levin College of Law was recently retained by the Region of Peel, Ontario Canada Legal Services Division to conduct a legal technology assessment of the division’s processes, procedures and current technology and provide recommendations and direction for improving delivery of client services.

Yariv Brauner
Associate Professor

• Will be UF’s “young scholar” presenter at the 2008 SEALS Conference.

Don Peters
Director of Virgil Hawkins Civil Clinics; Director of Institute for Dispute Resolution; Trustee Research Fellow; Professor; Associate Director, Center on Children and Families

• Recently published his book, Juris Types:Learning Law Through Self-Understanding, (with Martha M. Peters) (The Center for Applications of Psychological Type, 2007).

Christopher Slobogin
Stephen C. O’Connell Chair; Affiliate Professor of Psychiatry; Adjunct Professor, University of South Florida Mental Health Institute; Associate Director, Center for Children and Families

• Spoke at the “Life Over Death” conference on Sept. 7 in Orlando on “The Death Penalty and Mental Illness.”
• Spoke at a meeting of ex-foreign intelligence officers on “Surveillance Law” on Sept. 8.

The Art Show will open on Sept. 28, with a wine and cheese reception at 7 p.m. The Art Show is open to virtually any type of media, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photographs.

“This a is a great opportunity for the law school community to show off their talents other than the law,” said Cassandra Montenegro, who co-chairs the Art Show Selection Committee with fellow second-year law student Eric Burger. “We’re interested in just about anything that people would like to submit. The thing is really to get people excited about what other people are doing here at UF and have a good time with it.”

Those who wish submit a piece for the show should email a digital image of the artwork to Burger at ecburger@gmail.com. For more information, contact Montenegro at arispax@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is Thursday, Sept. 20.

Instead of following the big dollar signs, UF Law alum Scott Atwood (JD 95) says becoming a successful, happy attorney is about building relationships with others and being involved in the community.

Atwood currently practices labor, employment and business litigation with Stout Walling Atwood LLC in Atlanta, and runs Scott E. Atwood P.C. in Sarasota.

At UF Law, he served as the editor-in-chief of the Florida Journal of International Law and was a recipient of the President’s Award for outstanding contributions to UF. He also served as secretary of the John Marshall Bar Association and was the editor of the law schools weekly newspaper, The Docket.

“Being so involved in law school prepared me so much for what I do today in my practice,” he said. “Every day I deal with reading, writing and editing. Plus the experience of managing and supervising others was important as well.

He recently was installed as president of the Florida Bar’s Young Lawyers Division, which represents more than 22,000 members of the Florida Bar. He says being involved in the community adds another dimension to his career.

“I always tell young lawyers how important it is to get involved with something in their community,” he said. “Whether it’s the state bar or any other organization, it will make their careers much more enriching.”

Atwood first worked for a large firm and just recently merged his own firm with two other attorneys. He says starting off with a firm is a good idea, but that he likes being his own boss.

“It makes a lot of sense when you’re first starting out to work for a firm that knows the ropes, and I definitely would not advise starting my own firm out of school,” he said. “There’s lots of pressure running a small firm when it comes to paying the bills, getting clients in the door and being prepared for your current clients as well.”

Being at a smaller firm allows Atwood the chance to create stronger relationships with the people he represents, he said.

“I love that I have a job where I have constant client contact where people rely on me,” Atwood said. “You end up developing strong, trusting relationships, and many of them become my good friends.”

He says the allure of high salaries for new graduates out of law school occasionally steers people the wrong way.

“Sometimes it’s better to take less money and get a better development experience, better life and better surrounding environment,” he said. “Don’t automatically assume the highest paying job is the best.

Now that Atwood runs his own firm, he not only gets to help people with their problems, but is living his dream as well.

“Being a lawyer allows me to help people solve their problems in a way they can’t do on their own, and I like that,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to run my own firm and it allows me to do what I want to do, how I want to do it.”

Recent news reports have been replete with accounts of secret government programs designed to monitor not only the communications of foreign nationals but also of American citizens. Less well known are government efforts, particularly prolific in the wake of 9/11, to obtain vast amounts of information about everyday transactions of Americans and mine it for information, and to observe, through digital cameras and other surveillance devices, our physical activities. How much of this surveillance, if any, is governed by the Constitution and, if it isn’t, should it be? Professor Slobogin will address these and related issues at a level that is accessible—and interesting—to the campus community and the general public.

Slobogin said his talk will focus on the Fourth Amendment, a topic that has grabbed many news headlines recently.

“The Bush Administration’s wiretapping, camera surveillance and data mining programs may not violate the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, but they stretch the definition of what is reasonable to the limit, which is worth discussing on the day we officially celebrate the Constitution,” Slobogin said.

Professor Slobogin occupies the Stephen C. O’Connell chair at the UF Fredric G. Levin College of Law. He has authored or co-authored over 70 articles, books and chapters on mental health law, criminal procedure and evidence law. He recently published Minding Justice: Laws that Deprive People with Mental Disability of Life and Liberty, with Harvard University Press, and Proving the Unprovable: The Role of Law, Science and Speculation in Assessing Culpability and Dangerousness with Oxford University Press, and his book, Privacy at Risk: The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment, will soon be published by the University of Chicago Press. He has appeared on Good Morning America, Nightline, the Today Show, National Public Radio, and many other media outlets, and has been cited in over 1,000 law review articles and close to100 judicial opinions, including three Supreme Court decisions. He has written extensively on the Constitution and law enforcement issues.