McCollum said he truly enjoyed his days as a U.S. congressman because of the new challenges he faced every day, but as the chief legal officer of the state, McCollum said his role is very different but still exciting. “You are in the executive branch, you have to make tough policy decisions, and you are able to really get things done. The pay isn’t very good, but you are doing good every day,” McCollum said.

The “Double-Gator” credited his passion for public policy for beginning as a UF Law student. McCollum’s lecture was centered on the discussion of important policy issues, including the right of free speech and consumer protection.

He spoke of the importance of the right to free speech around the world. At the heart of public policy is free speech, McCollum said. “It’s just not right to deny free speech, that is so fundamental to us.” He expressed that the Office of Attorney General of Florida has a lot of important public policy issues, but “there is nothing more important than free speech.”

The attorney general shared with UF Law students, faculty and staff Florida’s most important consumer affair case since the tobacco settlement. The case involved AT&T Inc. and free ring tones offered by third-party content providers. The dilemma was that the free ring tones were actually not free, and the third-party provider didn’t adequately inform consumers of the charge.

As a result, the company violated the law against unfair and deceptive trade practices. AT&T Inc. evaluated the issue that affected many consumers and guaranteed that it would police the Internet for all third-party content for cell phones, make sure the advertising is clear in the future and provide a refund for Florida residents who claim that they were mischarged.

While speaking to the future lawyers in the room, McCollum said, “you are the protectors of these freedoms, but there’s balance. The constitution and the scales of justice are one in the same. Your job and my job is to do our very best to get it right.”

Albright discussed the state of the presidency and her new book, Memo To The President Elect: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership. “It was written for the president elect to read on election night, but it’s out now, so it’s basically for Americans primarily, some foreigners, in order to see what I think are the major national security issues for the next president to confront,” she said.

The idea of the book stemmed from thinking about the power of the American presidency while watching former presidents and President George W. Bush interact at former President Gerald Ford’s funeral at the Washington National Cathedral. Albright spent much time researching how former presidents had seen the office.

The former U.S. Secretary of State spoke mostly of the “horrors of the world” that the next president will have to combat. “I think this is going to be one of the hardest presidencies that we have seen in a very, very long time,” Albright said.

The book centers around five big issues that the next president will have to confront, including fighting terrorism without creating more terrorists, mitigating the threat of nuclear powers, reducing the effects of globalization, restoring the good name of democracy, dealing with environmental issues, and managing two “hot wars” with unintended consequences.

Albright spoke of the “hot wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq and the task of the president to deal with each war’s unintended consequences. Afghanistan’s unintended consequence is Pakistan, she said. “Pakistan is a country that has every element of what gives you an international migraine. They have nuclear weapons, terrorism, extremism, poverty and corruption.”

But “Iraq is going to go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy”” in terms of unintended consequences. Albright compared the war in Iraq to billiards. “With a bunch of balls in the middle of the table, you hit the ball, hope it will get into the pocket on the other side, but on the way it hits a lot of other balls – it’s very horizontal and dynamic,” she said.

“The next President has a huge agenda, and is going to have to operate in some other way realizing that we have to work with other countries,” Albright said. “The next presidency is going to be a very, very difficult one.”

Albright was the 64th Secretary of State of the United States. In 1997, she was named the first woman Secretary of State and became, at that time, the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. Albright visited the Levin College of Law upon the invitation of UF Law Professor and Dean Emeritus Jon Mills (JD 72), director of the Center for Governmental Responsibility.

Albright is a principal of The Albright Group LLC. She is the first Michael and Virginia Mortara Endowed Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She chairs both the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and the Pew Global Attitudes Project and serves as president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation. Albright co-chairs the UNDP’s Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, serves on the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Board of Trustees for the Aspen Institute and the Board of Directors of the Center for a New American Security.

UF Law alumni Carol M. Browner and Janet R. Studley were instrumental in arranging the visit. Browner (JD 79) is a principal of The Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm, former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a member of President Bill Clinton’s cabinet for eight years. Studley (JD 76) is a partner with Holland & Knight in Washington D.C. and past chair of Holland & Knight’s Government Law Section. Studley also served as chief counsel to the Subcommittee on Federal Spending Practices and Open Government of the United States Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by the late Senator Lawton Chiles.

UF Law Dean Robert Jerry said, “First let me emphasize, as detailed in a letter I have endorsed along with about 170 other law school deans in the nation, that ranking systems are an unreliable guide to the differences among law schools that should be important to anyone trying to compare them. The U.S. News and World Report ranking methodology is, in my opinion, an extremely inexact measure of an institution’s true quality. But the reality is that many people use such rankings, and it would therefore be poor judgment for us simply to ignore them. Having said that, we are still pleased that the exceptional quality of our Graduate Tax Program continues to be recognized, as is our status as one of the country’s best public law schools.”

The U.S. Congress has finally caught on to the need of graduating students who have excessive loans. Equal Justice Works Senior Program Manager Heather Jarvis spoke to law students March 19 about The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007.

As a graduate of Duke University School of Law and an attorney who works tirelessly for the poor, Jarvis said she understands the financial barriers that exist with practicing public interest law. But thanks to Congress there is finally a law on the books to help students with particularly high debt and low salaries.

The new law helps students who plan to pursue public interest careers with debt in two ways: significantly lowering the monthly student loan payments with Income-Based Repayment (IBR) and canceling a student’s remaining debt after 10 years of public service with Loan Forgiveness for Public Service.

The new law is very exciting news for public interest law attorneys and other public interest workers with high student debt but doesn’t come without setbacks. It is important for students to realize that not all loans are eligible for the two provisions and for Loan Forgiveness for Public Service only a certain loan is accepted. Only Federal Direct Loans are eligible for public service loan forgiveness, Jarvis said.

The Income-Based Repayment option will be available for both federal direct loans and federally guaranteed loans. These loans include Stafford, GradPlus and federal consolidation loans. But Loan Forgiveness for Public Service only applies to federal direct loans, including federal direct consolidation loans. Students with federal loans that are not already in Federal Direct may consolidate into Federal Direct to take advantage of public service loan forgiveness. Jarvis said she couldn’t stress it enough that “only federal direct loans are eligible for the new public service loan forgiveness.”

Students can find out what kind of loans they have by visiting the National Student Loan Data System at www.nslds.ed.gov.

Loan Forgiveness for Public Service requires the federal government to cancel the remaining student loan balance after a borrower makes 120 qualifying loan payments, which is once a month for 10 years, while working full-time in a qualifying public service position after October 1, 2007. The 10 years in public service does not have to be consecutive, but individuals do have to be in a qualifying public service position when loan forgiveness is requested.

Whereas the Loan Forgiveness for Public Service is very specific, the Income-Based Repayment provision is available for all students with high debt and low salaries. The provision requires borrowers to have a partial financial hardship, which “it’s not hard to have a partial financial hardship when you have a law degree,” Jarvis said.

The downside of the Income-Based Repayment provision is that it will not go into effect until July 1, 2009. Income-Based Repayment has it’s own loan cancellation provision, which cancels any remaining debt after 25 years of making Income-Based repayments.

While most people think a career in public service only encompasses a small portion of jobs, the definition of public service within the new law is much broader than first anticipated. It defines public service as any full-time job in government or a 501(c)(3). This allows for many people to take full advantage of the program, Jarvis said.

The presentation was sponsored by the Florida Bar Foundation. For additional information about the new law and its provisions visit www.equaljusticeworks.org.