The University of Florida recognizes Distinguished Alumni as graduates who have excelled in his/her chosen field or have performed outstanding service for the university. It is gratifying to note that nearly 30 percent of all UF’s Distinguished Alumni honored since the inception of the program have been Levin College of Law graduates. We are extremely proud to honor and recognize three UF Law alumni with 2010 University of Florida Distinguished Alumni Awards.

Stephen N. Zack, 2010 UF Law Commencement Speaker

When University of Florida Distinguished Alumnus Stephen N. Zack (JD 71) takes office as president of the American Bar Association this June, he won’t be the first Gator to hold the prestigious office, but his election will still be one for the record books.

Zack, an administrative partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, will be the first Hispanic-American president of the ABA in the organization’s 130-year history. Following his installation as ABA president, Zack will lead the organization’s 410,000 members and nearly $100 million budget, and he has already hit the ground running in promoting his agenda as ABA president to provide appropriate financial support of the judiciary and improving civic education.

Zack has a long history of leadership and achievement. During law school, he was an active member of the University of Florida student body and served as president of Florida Blue Key. In addition to the long list of professional leadership roles he has held in the ABA, The Florida Bar, his local bar association and in his community, Zack is also a founding member of the Cuban-American Bar Association and was the first Hispanic-American — and youngest — president of The Florida Bar. His career is marked by outstanding service to Florida’s citizens as general counsel to Gov. Bob Graham, as chair of the state’s Ethics Commission, as an appointee of Gov. Lawton Chiles to the Florida Constitution Revision Commission, and, most historically, as trial counsel for Presidential Candidate Al Gore during Bush v. Gore.

In a career spanning nearly four decades, Zack has always been a tireless participant in and advocate for the rule of law. His passionate belief in the civic responsibility of those who are governed to participate in their governance is a cornerstone of his agenda as ABA president, as is his devotion to the judiciary and its role in guaranteeing the Constitutional rights of every citizen. Zack holds dear the responsibility of the legal profession to uphold the laws of the country — a devotion to the rule of law that his family’s experience fleeing Cuba and Fidel Castro’s repressive regime in 1961 helped hone.

“In 1961 the first indication of the loss of liberty in Cuba was the attacks on the judiciary. It went downhill from there,” Zack said. “All constitutions are only words unless there is a commitment by the citizens to accept and defend those rights.”

Stephen H. “Steve” Grimes

Double Gator, Florida Supreme Court Justice-emeritus, and UF Distinguished Alumnus Stephen H. Grimes (JD 54) is a jurist known for his dedication to the law, to public service and for his work ethic, intellect, and personal integrity. At UF, Grimes was president of his social fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega, served as editor-in-chief of the Florida Law Review and was a member of Florida Blue Key, Phi Delta Phi legal honor society, and the Order of the Coif. Grimes served his country in the U.S. Navy between 1951 and 1953, and following his graduation from UF Law in 1954, he joined Holland & Knight, becoming head of the firm’s litigation department. He served as president of the Tenth Judicial Circuit Bar Association in 1966 and became a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers in 1971. In 1973, Grimes was appointed to his first judicial position on the Florida Second District Court of Appeal, where he served until 1987 and as chief judge from 1978 to 1980. Gov. Bob Martinez appointed Grimes to the Florida Supreme Court in 1987, and he served as chief justice of the court between 1994 and 1996. After his retirement from the court in 1996, Grimes returned to Holland & Knight as partner and the firm’s “Senior Statesman,” where he continues to mentor young lawyers. He has been recognized as a Florida Super Lawyer, and is among the “Best Lawyers in America” for white collar criminal defense, appellate law and commercial litigation.

Kenneth Hood “Buddy” MacKay Jr.

During his nearly 30-year life in public service, double Gator and UF Distinguished Alumnus Kenneth Hood “Buddy” MacKay Jr. (JD 61) has focused on improving the quality of life for Floridians, preserving and protecting Florida’s environment, and ensuring the fiscal responsibility of government. As a UF undergrad, MacKay was inducted into the University of Florida Hall of Fame. He achieved the rank of captain in the U.S. Air Force, and practiced law in Daytona Beach following his graduation from UF Law. In 1968, MacKay was elected to the Florida House of Representatives. He was subsequently elected to the Florida Senate in 1975, and later to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served from 1983 to 1989. In 1988, MacKay ran for the U.S. Senate but lost in a very close race to Connie Mack III. In 1990, MacKay was elected lieutenant governor on the ticket headed by Gov. Lawton Chiles, and they served two terms. With term limits preventing Gov. Chiles from running again, MacKay ran for governor but lost the election to Jeb Bush. MacKay became the state’s 42nd governor, nonetheless, due to the tragic and untimely death of Gov. Chiles 23 days before the end of his term. Following his retirement from public office after his term as governor, MacKay continued to serve his country as a special envoy to the Americas, appointed by President Bill Clinton, between 1999 and 2001. He remains devoted to Florida, and, as a certified mediator, established a project in the 5th Judicial Circuit of Florida to use mediation to resolve child-protection dependency cases. The mediation program has now been adopted by 19 of Florida’s 20 circuits.

Federalist Society ranked among top chapters
According to the National Federalist Society, the UF College of Law Chapter is ranked among the top four chapters in the U.S. Please congratulate Professor Steven Willis and Josh Mize, president of the UF chapter, on this well-deserved honor.

ICAM team receives honorable mention in Vienna
At this year’s Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot held in Vienna, Austria, the team from University of Florida received two important recognitions. The team won an honorable mention for its Claimant’s brief, drafted by all members with editing credit to Andres Healy, and Julianne Parker earned an honorable mention for her oral arguments. Law students from around the world compete in the Vis Moot each year, with over 250 schools and over 1,400 students in attendance. The UF team consisted of Joe Wheeler, Anastasia Campbell, Sasha Funk, Andres Healy, Olga Butkevich, Chana Cannon, and Julianne Parker. This is a new high in terms of recognition for the UF team. The team is coached by Professors Dawson and Harrison as well as Miami attorney Eduardo Palmer. Throughout the semester it was benched by Professors Hurst, Davis, Powell, Sokol and Professor Larry DiMatteo from the College of Business. UF’s oral rounds included arguments with the teams from Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, Universidad Panamericana in Mexico, University of Mainz in Germany, and Universite Pantheon-Assas in France.

Congratulations to the UF Jessup International Law Moot Court Team
In February, the Jessup team competed in the 51st annual Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, the world’s largest moot court competition with participants from more than 500 law schools in more than 80 countries. The Jessup team placed sixth out of 24 teams competing in the U.S. Southeast Super Regional round, reaching the quarterfinals for the first time in school history. The participants were 2Ls Matthew Kozyra, Jason Taylor, Steven Blickensderfer, Lindsey Franco, and Jennifer Shepard. The team also took home the title of fifth best brief out of the 24 teams that competed. Individually, Steven Blickensderfer was named 15th best oralist out of all individual oralists at the Southeast Super Regional round. UF Jessup annually competes in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, which focuses on public international law and humanitarian law. For more information about the UF Jessup team, please visit the Jessup Web site at or e-mail Jason Taylor at ufjessupmootcourt@gmail.com.

Environmental and Land Use students, faculty and friends paddle Matanzas River
Faculty and students associated with the Environmental and Land Use Law Program recently took advantage of a Spring Break rain check and fabulous weather to paddle the Matanzas River Estuary on Florida’s Northeast Coast. The kayak trip was originally scheduled as the final field trip for the Program’s Marine and Coastal Law and Policy Field Course but inclement weather dashed any possibilities. The Matanzas River Estuary is currently being considered for designation as an Outstanding Florida Water under Florida law, which imposes a non-degradation standard on designated waters. The Florida Department of Environmental Regulation will hold a hearing on the proposed designation on April 13 in Palm Coast. Following the 3.5 hour long paddle, the paddlers enjoyed the sunset from the back deck of the home of UF Law alumnus and former EPA Region 4 Administrator John Hankinson, whose home overlooks an arm of the estuary and the Atlantic Ocean. Additionally, Conservation Clinic Director Tom Ankersen and CGR Associate in Law Richard Hamann, together with 2009 JD and ELULP program graduates Rachel King and John November and 2010 ELULP LLM candidate Megan Wegerif, recently published a law review article on the regulatory and practical effect of OFW designation in the Sea Grant Law and Policy Journal, based on recent work of the Conservation Clinic.

Sam Warfield selected for Law Student Award
Second-year law student Sam Warfield has been selected as the recipient of the Law Student Award by the Executive Council for the Florida Bar City, County and Local Government Section. He will be presented with a cash award and plaque at the section’s annual awards luncheon for his outstanding academic performance in Professor Wolf’s course on local government law.

Participate in the 2010 law school student survey
UF Law has agreed to participate in the 2010 Vault Law School Student Survey. The information from this survey may be included in the 7th edition of the Vault Law School Buzz Book and will appear on the Vault.com Web site. Your participation will help countless prospective students make key choices during the law school application process. In completing this survey, we encourage you to be candid as your identity will remain anonymous. During the course of the survey, you will be asked for certain information that you may feel makes you identifiable to your school. However, any responses we quote will not be paired with any information that will allow your school to identify the quoted student. Please complete the survey by Friday, May 14, 2010.
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On April 8, Cohn visited the Levin College of Law to share her outrage and legal expertise concerning the contested legality of the enhanced interrogation techniques used on detainees in U.S. custody. Cohn’s visit was hosted by UF Law’s American Constitution Society.

Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. She is also the immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild and author of several books. In 2008, Cohn testified before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties concerning the Bush administration’s policies on torture. She is also the recipient of the Peace Scholar of the Year Award from the Peace and Justice Studies Association.

According to Cohn, there is no question that techniques such as water boarding are indeed torture and that the War on Terror has brought with it numerous instances of U.S.-perpetrated torture, in violation of both U.S. and international law.

“Whether somebody is a prisoner of war or not, he or she must always be treated humanely. There are no gaps in the Geneva Convention,” Cohn said.

She elaborated further, stating, “When the United States passes a treaty, it becomes law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which says that treaties shall be the supreme law of the land.”

Cohn addressed the much-publicized practice of water boarding, which she described as the practice of placing a detainee on an inclined board such that his head is below his feet and then pouring water into his nose and mouth “until he almost suffocates or drowns.”

“[Water boarding] has long been considered torture. In fact, many U.S. Federal Court decisions call it torture. Japanese generals were prosecuted by the United States for water boarding as torture,” Cohn said. She added that during the Bush administration, detainees in U.S. custody were water boarded nonetheless and, in at least one instance, a detainee was water boarded up to 183 times throughout his detainment.

Cohn argued that legal advisors to former president George W. Bush skirted U.S. and international law to authorize the use of torture against detainees in U.S. custody.

“What they did was to come up with so-called legal reasoning to fit the result that the Bush Administration wanted…they were twisting the law,” Cohn stated.

Their advice led to a 2002 announcement by George W. Bush that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the treatment Taliban and Al-Qaeda members, Cohn said.

“There is precedent in our law for holding lawyers criminally liable for giving legally erroneous advice that resulted in great physical harm or death,” she said, advocating for Bush’s legal advisors who endorsed the use of torture to be held criminally liable. Until those responsible for implementing the practice of torturing detainees are held responsible, Cohn places responsibility for action in the hands of the citizens:“It is up to us, as citizens of this country, to pressure our government – both the White House and Congress, in any way we can.”

Four current and former federal clerks came to give their thoughts, each with their own unique experience. Jason Marques (JD 07) clerks for the U.S. Middle District of Florida. Also working for the Middle District are Lundi McCarthy, who is soon moving to Washington D.C. to work for the Pentagon, and Janine Toner (JD 04), who now works as a staff attorney, having finished her clerkship. Finally, Michael Dupee (JD 92) is a career clerk with the U.S. Northern District of Florida.

The conversation ranged from the clerks’ backgrounds to their average day, but with the room full of students eager to follow in the footsteps of the clerks, most of the event focused on how to get a clerkship. Dupee said that he was fortunate in getting his first clerkship, the process taking only one week. But after that concluded, he had to spread a wide net to find another. “I sent out 104 packets,” Dupee said, “and I got four responses, and one offer.” After completing that clerkship in Cleveland, he came back to Florida, and after clerking for several more years, was asked to be a career clerk.

Dupee then gave some advice on how students can help set themselves up to be good applicants. Graduating at the top of your class was his first suggestion, but added that it can take more than that to get a highly coveted clerkship.

“If you’re at the top of your class and you have great credentials, there’s still more that you can do,” Dupee said. He added that externing with a judge can be of enormous benefit, not only because you get experience in chambers and build a relationship with a judge, but also because other judges will then have a reliable reference to check.

Even when all those things are judged, Dupee said that there are still a few excellent candidates remaining, and soft factors become important. Things like personal interests and hobbies can sometimes strike an unexpected chord, he said.

Marques said that he could very well owe his clerkship to some personal information he included. When he applied, he listed that he is a fan of the Boston Red Sox, and two of the people who were then working for the judge just happened to be fellow Red Sox fans. “You just never know what kind of thing will stick out and push you over the top,” Marques said.

But McCarthy warned students that they don’t want to be too quirky about the personal information that they include. “We had one applicant who put that he was a bee keeper,” she said, “and he sent a jar of honey with his application.” While that applicant did get an interview, McCarthy said that it was probably only because the judge wanted to satisfy his curiosity by seeing him in person.

Finally, the clerks discussed some of the benefits of clerking. Toner, who worked in private practice for four years before clerking, told students how nice it is not to have the burden of billable hours, and how a clerk can explore a legal problem much more thoroughly. “When you clerk, you can really dig into an issue,” she said.

Students interested in applying for a judicial clerkship should stop by the Office of Career Development, 244 Bruton-Geer Hall, or call 352-273-0860 for more information.

All of them agreed that there are problems with the death penalty today, though.

“The more we ask questions about the death penalty, the more we begin to see, at least from my perspective, that whether you’re for it or against it, it’s got problems,” Rambo said.

One of the problems agreed on are that the death penalty is arbitrarily imposed. For example, not all states have the death penalty, so a crime could be significantly worse in one state but not have the possibility of capital punishment. Nunn saw this first-hand as a defense attorney in Washington, D.C., which does not have the death penalty.

“I can assure you that the cases that I dealt with were as vile, troubling, vicious and cruel as any case in which the death penalty was imposed,” Nunn said. “None of these people received capital punishment.”

Nunn, who said the death penalty does not work and is arbitrarily imposed, spoke a lot about race’s effect on the death penalty. He raised a comprehensive study done by Iowa professor David Baldus, which has been cited by the Supreme Court. The study, done in Georgia, found that African-Americans were four times more like to be sentenced to death than white criminals when accounting for the crimes. Even more significantly, the color of the victim mattered more in the study. Criminals who murdered white victims were much more likely to get the death penalty. If an African-American killed a white victim, he was 11 times more likely to get the death penalty than a white person killing an African-American.

In McCleskey v. Kemp, the Supreme Court debated if there was enough evidence of racial bias to stop the death penalty. The justices cited the Baldus study, but in a 5-4 decision voted that the evidence was not sufficient enough to change the death penalty. Justice Scalia, who voted to sustain the death penalty, sent out a memo to his colleagues that was later leaked, Nunn said, arguing that Scalia admitted to racial bias but voted not to change anything for political reasons.

Nunn paraphrased Scalia’s memo: “I don’t think we need to debate on whether or not there is sufficient evidence of racial bias in implementation of the death penalty. I am convinced that there is sufficient evidence of racial bias in the administration of justice and particularly the death penalty in America. However, I’m not going to vote for this because I think that if I do the consequences will be so severe that we will not be able to maintain our criminal justice system in the manner in which we have done so throughout the history of the United States.”

Even Dekle admitted that the death penalty could be better imposed. He spent 32 years as a prosecutor and defense attorney and prosecuted 15 death penalty cases. He has attended two executions of criminals that he prosecuted and has other convictions sitting on death row.

“I will say this: over the 32 years that I practiced criminal law and prosecuted and defended death penalty cases, my views and opinions about the death penalty have evolved and changed, and now at the end of my career, looking at the death penalty and the way that it is being imposed in the United States, I see some problems,” Dekle said.

“There were five people who were finalists and they’re great people, so that’s a question I had. Why me?” Davis said. “But it’s certainly an honor.”

Davis won student of the year while Professor Lee-ford Tritt won professor of the year for the second consecutive year.

“I’m very humbled by the honor of being named professor of the year,” Tritt said. “And I feel so unworthy of this recognition when I reflect upon the great depth of wonderful professors that the law school is blessed to have. My colleagues daily inspire me and guide me. In reality, the students are prepared and trained so well by the professors who teach first year courses that teaching 2Ls and 3Ls is an effortless pleasure.”

Davis, who will work at Holland & Knight in Orlando after graduation, had a great experience at UF Law and congratulated the finalists for student of the year: Clay Carlton, Jon Philipson, Jennifer White and James Tyger. The highlight of law school for him was arguing in front of Chief Justice Roberts for the Moot Court Final Four.

Professor Lee-ford Tritt wins professor of the year for the second consecutive year.

“Not only would that be the highlight of law school, I have a feeling that will probably be the highlight of my legal career, but you never know,” Davis said. “I learned a lot from that experience. I remember Justice [Rosemary] Barkett, when we were walking to the event, pulled us all aside and told us not to be nervous, which we all laughed at. She also said, ‘Treat this as a conversation. It’s not us interviewing you and you responding. We’re talking to you about your case. We want to know your theory and we have legitimate questions that need to be answered.’”

Tritt, who taught Estates and Trusts, Estate Planning and Fiduciary Administration this year, thanked his students for pushing him to improve.

“It’s an extreme honor and privilege to teach the students who attend UF Law School,” Tritt said. “The students are so sharp, hardworking, and dedicated—they keep me on my toes and positively challenge me. The students set a high hurdle which, in turn, makes me a better teacher and lawyer. I learn more from teaching them then they will ever learn from me.”

But even though Tritt has won the award twice in a row he knows there is still room for improvement.

“There is really nothing more important to me than striving to be a good teacher,” Tritt said. “This award means that I will continue to strive to be a better teacher so that I can be worthy of this honor.”