Inn of Court accepting applications
The James C. Adkins, Jr. American Inn of Court, which meets in Gainesville, is accepting student applications for participation in the esteemed American Inns of Court, a national legal mentoring organization that teams law students (pupils) with new lawyers (associates), seasoned practitioners (barristers), judges, and senior lawyers (Masters of the Bench). The Inn meets six to eight times per year. Selected students participate in regular meetings, at no cost to student members. Meetings include a mixer, dinner, and an educational program. All group members of the Inn prepare and present programs that address issues, techniques, problems, and ethics of the practice of law. Student membership is an excellent opportunity to work with, and observe, outstanding members of the legal profession, while learning trial techniques and other essential legal skills. Applications are available in the Legal Research & Writing office. Deadline is Sept. 17. For more information, please contact Senior Legal Skills Professor Diane Tomlinson at tomlinso@law.ufl.edu.

Environmental Moot Court tryouts application deadline Sept. 10
Interested in environmental law? Want to hone your brief-writing and appellate advocacy skills? Students in their second and third years can try out for the competition team that will represent UF at the National Environmental Moot Court Competition in February 2011 in White Plains, New York.  Second-year students who apply will also be considered for the coach position. The coach provides logistical support to this year’s competition team and attends the National Environmental Moot Court Competition in February 2011 in a support role. The coach is automatically a member of the 2011-2012 competition team. The application process includes a written submission (resumé, unofficial (ISIS) transcript, and argument section of your brief from Appellate Advocacy) and an oral argument tryout. You should remove your name and contact information from the resumé, transcript, and writing sample and identify your application with the entrant number you will be assigned when you submit your material. Written submissions can be delivered in hard copy to HOL 319 or sent by e-mail to hinson@law.ufl.edu. Early application is encouraged. Applicants are asked to sign up for an oral argument time slot at the time of submitting their written materials. Written applications are due Friday, Sept. 10, by 4 p.m. Oral argument tryouts will be scheduled for the week of Sept. 13. For more information, contact Lena Hinson hinson@law.ufl.edu or 352-273-0777.

Visiting professor gives speech for Brazilian American Chamber of Commerce
Visiting Prof. Attila Andrade gave a speech for the Brazilian American Chamber of Commerce in Miami in mid-August concerning the Brazilian great economic prosperity and its impact on legal change in his native country. Several professionals and entrepreneurs attended the event. Prof. Andrade is currently teaching two courses during this fall at UF Law, the traditional “Doing Business in Latin America” and his new course, “Practical International Business Transaction,” which has raised an extraordinary interest from the UF Law academic community.

Florida Moot Court Team thanks participants in Intramural Competition, welcomes new members
The Florida Moot Court Team would like to thank everyone who participated in the Intramural Competition this year. It would additionally like to congratulate and welcome its newest members:
The Final Four: Monica Haddad, Andrew Labbe, Jordan Peterson, Leigh Siddle, Daniel Lazaro (Alternate)
General Members: Amanda Brooks, Michael Bruno, Elizabeth Bryan, Amanda Finley, Jesse Isom, Alexander Landback, Dominique McPherson, Brittany O’Neil, Jennifer Sharp, Celia Thacker, Kimberly Tolland, Aaron Wasserstrom, Jennie Zilner.

Presented “Promoting Agricultural Production, Healthy Communities and Biodiversity through Ecoagriculture” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Fletcher Baldwin

Presented a paper titled, “The rule of law: an essential component of the financial war against organized crime and terrorism in the Americas, Uruguay round,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Commented on the panel, “Financial Crime & Street Crime,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Elizabeth Dale

Commented on the panel, “The Intersection of Law & Society with Public Labor and Employment Law,” and she presented a paper at a panel (which she organized), “Deploying History: Uses of the Past in Constitutional Discourse, Comparative Studies,” at the Law and Society Association conference in Chicago in May.

Nancy Dowd

Dowd made presentations on masculinities and feminist theory at two conferences in March at Harvard Law School and the Center for Applied Feminism at the University of Baltimore Law School.

Joan Flocks

Co-authored a paper titled, “The Role of Employers and Supervisors in Promoting Pesticide Safety Behavior among Florida Farmworkers,” which was published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 53(8):814-824, 2010. Flocks was also one of six invited reviewers nationwide for a report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, “Assessing the Effects of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill on Human Health” which came out of a June 2010 meeting and is currently available for free in prepublication at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12949.

Commented on the panel, “Comparative Perspectives on the Environmental/Human Rights Link in the Americas,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Berta Hernandez-Truyol

Commented on the panel, “Comparative Perspectives on the Environmental/Human Rights Link in the Americas,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Lea Johnston

Johnston presented “Wrestling with the Problem: Exploring the Promise of Social Problem-Solving Theory for Representational Competence,” at the American Psychology-Law Society Annual Conference in March, and presented her current work-in-progress, “Mental Health Courts: Theoretical and Empirical Deficiencies,” at the SEALS new scholars workshop in early August.

Pedro Malavet

Presented a paper titled, “Comparative Law as Looking Glass: What Foreign Legal Systems Can Teach us About Ours,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Martin McMahon

Published “Living with the Codified Economic Substance Doctrine” in 128 Tax Notes 731 (Aug. 16, 2010).

Timothy McLendon

Presented “Eco-Constitutionalism: Authority or mandate? Florida’s awkward experience” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Commented on the panel, “Agro-Ranching and the Environment,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Jon Mills

Commented on the panel, “Emerging Legal Issues in Uruguay and the Americas,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Stephen Powell

Presented a paper titled, “Managing the rule of law in the Americas: an empirical portrait of the effects of 15 years of WTO dispute resolution on civil society in Latin America,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Commented on the panel, “Trade, Business, and Dispute Settlement,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Michael T. Olexa

Presented a paper titled, “Chemicals, Cosmetics, and Consumers,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Don Peters

Presented a paper titled, “It Takes Two to Tango, and to Mediate: Legal Cultural and other Factors influencing United States and Latin American Lawyers’ Reluctance to Mediate Commercial Disputes,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Leonard Riskin

Presented “Finding the Appropriate Problem Definition in Mediation” at the Annual Symposium on Dispute Resolution in the Courts in April.

Danny Sokol

Sokol was announced as the series co-editor of the new series “Global Competition Law and Economics,” to be published by Stanford University Press. He has also been appointed as one of the members of the editorial advisory board for the “Antitrust Chronicle,” a publication of Competition Policy International.

Jeff Wade

Commented on the panel, “Agro-Ranching and the Environment,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

From left: Monica Haddad, Jordan Peterson, Daniel Lazaro, Andrew Labbe and Leigh Anne Siddle.

UF Law students Leigh Anne Siddle, Andrew Labbe, Monica Haddad, and Jordan Peterson (supported by alternate Daniel Lazaro) will argue before a panel of five distinguished judges in the 25th Annual Zimmerman Kiser Sutcliffe Moot Court Final Four Competition that will take place this Friday, Sept. 10. This year’s panel will be comprised of federal and state judges from throughout the state of Florida: The Honorable Jacqueline R. Griffin, Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal; The Honorable Robert Hinkle, Northern District of Florida; The Honorable William Terrell Hodges, Middle District of Florida; The Honorable Paul C. Huck, Southern District of Florida; and The Honorable Steven D. Merryday, Middle District of Florida.

After intense preparation and participation in this summer’s Florida Moot Court Intramural competition, the final four competitors and alternate, along with 13 other exceptional competitors, became the newest members of the Florida Moot Court Team, governed by the Justice Campbell Thornal Executive Board.

The Final Four competitors will showcase their oral argument skills this Friday, Sept. 10, at 10 a.m. in the recently constructed Martin H. Levin Legal Advocacy Center. All law students, faculty, and staff are invited to attend. It is expected to be a full house, so please plan to arrive early. Cell phones must be turned off or in silent mode. Come out to watch these outstanding oralists argue Fourth Amendment search and seizure issues, as well as First Amendment freedom of speech issues.

Competitor Biographies:

Leigh Anne Siddle

Leigh Anne Siddle, a native Floridian, graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a master’s degree in Special Education. Following graduation, Siddle taught high school for several years prior to enrolling in law school. This past summer, Siddle interned for the Honorable Edward C. LaRose at the Second District Court of Appeal in Lakeland. In addition to competing in the 25th Annual Zimmerman Kiser Sutcliff Moot Court Final Four Competition, Siddle is also a member of the Journal of Law & Public Policy. After receiving her law degree, Siddle intends to pursue appellate work as well as conduct pro bono work in Elder Law.

Andrew Labbe

Andrew Labbe was born and raised in Cape Cod, Mass. Andrew graduated from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts with a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in History and Sociology. Immediately upon graduation, Andrew moved to Orlando to attend Barry University School of Law. While at Barry, Andrew received the Book Award in his Legal Research & Writing class both semesters, and also reached the Final Four in the First Year Moot Court Competition. During his 1L summer, Andrew interned for the General Counsel at Connextions, Inc., serving as the point person for Fortune 50 member UnitedHealth Group and other significant clients, such as TiVo and Keystone Health.

Monica Haddad

Monica Haddad is a second year law student at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Monica graduated from the University of Florida in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. In 2007, she earned her master’s degree in information studies from the University of Texas at Austin. While in Austin, Monica worked for UT General Libraries and IBM. Before law school, she worked as a reference librarian and project archivist at Nova Southeastern University. During the summer of 2010, Monica worked as a research assistant for Professor William H. Page, helping update an antitrust treatise. She is a member of the Florida Journal of International Law and the Journal of Technology Law & Policy. She is also a teaching assistant for the first year Legal Research and Writing and Appellate Advocacy courses and serves as Vice President of the Intellectual Property Law and Technology Association and Secretary of the ABA Student Division at UF.

Jordan Peterson

Jordan C. Peterson is a second year law student at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. He was born in Jacksonville and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southern California with departmental honors in German Literature in 2008. After graduation, Jordan worked in the natural language division of USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies in Los Angeles, helping to develop the language function in artificial intelligence and interactive media. Outside of school, Jordan enjoys cycling, watching college football, and singing bass in the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church choir. He is interested in pursuing a career in litigation and appellate work.

Daniel Lazaro

Dan Lazaro was born and raised in New Jersey. He received his Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Miami, where he was inducted into Iron Arrow, the university’s highest honor. In addition to being an active member of the Florida Moot Court Team at the Levin College of Law, Dan is involved with the John Marshall Bar Association and OutLaw. After his first year of law school, Dan interned for United States District Judge Paul C. Huck of the Southern District of Florida and worked as a summer law clerk for the South Florida law firm, Gaebe, Mullen, Antonelli, and DiMatteo. After law school, Dan hopes to pursue a career in litigation. In his spare time, Dan enjoys reading, attending sporting events, and spending time with friends.

Former IRS Associate Chief Counsel, Jasper L. Cummings, Jr.,

“Fun stuff” may not be the first words to come to a law student’s mind when considering the topic of tax law. But former IRS Associate Chief Counsel, Jasper L. Cummings, Jr., assured students in the Graduate Tax Program that “fun stuff” may in fact become a part of their future careers.

Cummings, the most recent contributor to UF Law’s Enrichment Speaker Series, addressed a full house with his presentation, “Doing Tax Law, Learning Tax Law, and What to Do When It Doesn’t Make Sense.”

As the title suggests, students should anticipate that tax law is something they will actively be doing, and not merely acting as a passive participant. “Doing tax law is the reason you are here,” Cummings said.

Cummings emphasized that doing tax law follows an economic perspective, from the ground up, beginning with demand. At the source of that demand are the clients. Cummings analogized that doing tax law without a client is like being a violinist without a violin. Because clients often view taxes as a barely necessary nuisance, like going to the dentist, the expectations of clients are result oriented. A lawyer’s success will depend on his or her ability to meet the client’s demand for a substantial tax reduction. Unlike other areas of practice in which a lawyer may need to provide an elaborate explanation of how he or she arrived at a legal conclusion to a law partner or judge, tax clients are result-oriented. “They’re not going to want to know how you figure this out,” Cummings said.

“Showing up is 80 percent of success,” Cummings said, quoting Woody Allen. “If you don’t read to the end of the section [of the applicable law], you did not show up.” When learning tax law, students should be prepared to start at the bottom and tackle the law starting with the codes and regulations. Students also should become familiar with the available research tools, and always be sure to have a comprehensive understanding of the facts in a given case.

“Nine times out of 10, you will need to understand the fundamentals of the issue and not just find the case law on point,” Cummings said.

Full immersion is the best way to learn tax law, and students should avoid taking the kinds of shortcuts that might be more common among undergraduate students. The facts in a tax case are just as important as they were in a law student’s first-year cases, and both students and lawyers alike must have a complete understanding of the facts in their respective cases.

“If you mess something up, it is never going to be anybody else’s problem but yours,” Cummings warned. Students should also start thinking about the specific areas of tax law in which they want to focus. “Unfortunately, you’re going to have to specialize in the tax world,” Cummings said.

As lawyers specialize, their clients also will grow to include other lawyers. And with experience, lawyers will gain so-called “walking-around knowledge,” which Cummings describes as the kind of knowledge that is principally intuitive. Tax law is a century old, and students ought to come out of school with a familiarity of the standard “vocabulary cases,” with the ultimate goal being the development of walking-around knowledge.

Because of the well-established history of tax law, there is more of a logical explanation for the rules and conclusions in tax law than there are in any other area of the law. Because many students perhaps “resist being dragged through the history of the code” – where the reason for a given rule is often buried – Cummings advised that students avoid this resistance.

“Understanding the reason for a rule makes it much easier to remember and apply,” he said.

The Supreme Court has decided more than 1,000 federal tax cases interpreting the code, and these cases should not be overlooked. Even if a case was decided in 1942, a lawyer who cites Supreme Court case as precedent places the burden on the opposing party to come up with a good enough reason for why the court hearing the case at hand should not follow the Supreme Court – a rather heavy burden to meet.

Although applying standard solutions for a client can be very satisfying work, Cummings considers the “fun stuff” to be the difficult cases that go beyond the standard solutions and solve the unique problems of the client.

Cummings also considers tax law to be the most intellectually challenging type of law. He said it took him seven years of experience that included teaching tax law to really gain an understanding of the law. “When you get your degree, you have not arrived,” Cummings said.

Each year, the LL.M. in Comparative Law Program brings a handful of foreign law students to the UF College of Law to study and experience living in another country. Through the LL.M. program, which is directed by Professor David M. Hudson, these students are offered a diverse curriculum and faculty to assist them in a program tailored to their specific interests.

“The students in the comparative law program are looking for a better understanding of the American legal system so that when they return to their home countries, they can better serve their clients who may have business interests or investments in the United States,” Hudson said.

The program also allows students in the full-time J.D. program to meet law students from other parts of the world and interact with them in academic and social settings, Hudson said.

This year, eight students from various countries, including Zimbabwe, Columbia, Saudi Arabia and China, joined a talented student body of approximately 1,200 full-time J.D. students and about 100 lawyers in the Graduate Tax Program. Although students in the comparative law program — which requires 26 hours to be completed over three semesters — are enrolled in regular J.D. courses, their grade point averages are not calculated into the overall average of the course, for reasons stipulated by the UF Graduate School.

Ryan Kitcat, from Mutare, Zimbabwe, became interested in the comparative law program offered by the UF Levin College of Law during his final year of studying law at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. Although he has only been in the program a month, he feels extremely fortunate to be a part of it.

“Practically, given the challenges and opportunities connected to developments in the 21st Century, a comparative and international approach is becoming increasingly important to any legal education,” Kitcat said. “It helps to broaden one’s perspective and raises one’s awareness of the larger context surrounding issues. I think meaningful exposure to comparative law can play a beneficial role in shaping how lawyers think and act — both in responding to change and in shaping change — in the coming decades.”

Although he hopes to remain abroad — possibly in the United States — for a few years following completion of the program, his future career plans include working for an international organization and using his legal education to benefit his hometown.

“There is a great deal that needs to be done in Mutare, Zimbabwe, Southern Africa and Africa,” Kitcat said. “I hope to make a meaningful contribution through the practice of law generally, and to specialize in international trade and environment law.”

The Levin College of Law is affiliated with international universities and programs in 60 countries around the world, including Cape Town.

The new students, as pictured above from left to right, are Ryan Kitcat, Edith Esthela Gastoz, Veronica Musa, Aitza Haddad, Andrea Pinzon, Samia Marouvani, Giselle Ferreira and Abdulraham Alajlan.

Nancy Dowd

Do feminists see women as a diverse group in need of support and men as only one thing: male and privileged?

A new book by University of Florida Law Professor Nancy Dowd, “The Man Question: Male Subordination and Privilege,” (NYU Press), says it’s time to change this perspective and apply the feminist anti-essentialist view to males as well as females.

Dowd explains that feminism is credited with getting us to “ask the woman question” in virtually every discipline and in public policy, to question women’s status and to challenge women’s absence. Feminism readily acknowledges that all women are not created equal, and many factors, including race and class, help define individuals. Men receive a less-nuanced analysis.

“The core message of the book is that gender analysis is not just for women and girls; it is also for boys and men,” said Dowd, UF Law’s David H. Levin Chair in Family Law and director of the Center on Children & Families. “That means asking the man question, both when we are aware that men are at the heart of the issue, and when we tend to overlook them.”

In the book, Dowd draws from masculinities scholarship as well as feminist analysis to examine issues of manhood and masculinity. She ultimately demonstrates how both subordination and privilege is constructed for men and boys. She suggests how “the man question” should be asked, and then explores some examples of where this leads; including for boys, education and juvenile justice; and for men, fatherhood and adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

As these questions are asked, it is critical to see differences among men, rather than treating all men as alike. We need to not only ask “what about men?” but also “are all men alike in this situation?” Dowd said.

“Sometimes some men are more disadvantaged than others, particularly along lines of race and class,” Dowd said, illustrating her message by pointing out the disproportion of boys and men in the juvenile justice and adult criminal justice populations. Those men and boys in the system are also disproportionately men of color, she said.

Ultimately, Dowd seeks to expand our understanding of privilege and subordination by incorporating the study of masculinities into feminist theory.

“My prior scholarship had focused most recently on fatherhood, which combines my interest in family law and gender issues,” Dowd said. “In the course of writing a book on fathers, it was clear to me that masculinities were a critical barrier to shifting fatherhood toward a care-giving, nurturing model.”

Dowd also credits her law students for challenging the norms of gender analysis that pointed out the need for the book.

“Gender analysis is all about equality and justice, and once you begin that scrutiny, it is not limited to one particular group or category. The equality of all is essential.”

Dowd is also editor and a contributor for the book, “Justice for Kids: Keeping Kids Out of the Juvenile Justice System,” which is scheduled for publication next year. She is the author of two previous books – “In Defense of Single Parent Families” and “Redefining Fatherhood” – and co-author of two books – “Feminist Legal Theory: An Anti-Essentialist Reader” and “Handbook: Children, Culture and Violence.” Her areas of expertise include Constitutional law, family law, feminist jurisprudence, employment discrimination and civil rights. She can be reached at dowd@law.ufl.edu. View her faculty page at http://www.law.ufl.edu/faculty/dowd/.