Environmental program potluck reception
There will be a potluck reception for all students and faculty with an interest in environmental and land use law, at the home of Prof. Mary Jane Angelo on Thursday, Sept. 23, at 6 p.m. Bring your favorite dish and get to know some students and faculty who share your interests. Please RSVP to Lena Hinson at hinson@law.ufl.edu, and let her know if you need directions to Prof. Angelo’s home.

Select certificate programs make credit-hour requirement changes
Certificate programs in Family Law, Intellectual Property and Estates & Trusts will no longer require that students complete eight additional hours beyond the normal hours needed for graduation as part of their program requirements. All other requirements of these programs remain in effect. This change is effective for current and future students enrolled in the certificate programs, and is based on authorization from the faculty that occurred in the Sept. 8 faculty meeting.
In addition, CCF will hold a Family Law Certificate meeting at 12:30 p.m. in HOL 345 on Sept. 14 for anyone interested in applying or with questions about the program.

Resource counselor available in Student Affairs Stressed out? Overwhelmed? Feeling anxious? Simply want to talk with someone besides your friends and family? Our new resource counselor, Ron Del Moro, is now available for you, the UF Law community. Del Moro’s office is located in the Office of Student Affairs 164J, immediately on your right when you walk in. Del Moro is a nationally certified/licensed counselor who completed his graduate work at UF. He is open to working with individuals, couples and groups with any issues and/or concerns. Everything is confidential and free of charge. His office hours are Mondays 1-5 p.m. and Wednesdays 12-5 p.m. Please stop by anytime. Walk-ins are welcome or you can email him at rondel@ufl.edu to set up an appointment or ask questions.

Specialist can help your writing skills
Concerned about your writing skills? Our new legal writing specialist, Andrew Reynolds, is now available to help you. He graduated from UF this August with a Ph.D. in English, and he has worked as a writing instructor and tutor for several years. You are encouraged to visit Reynolds for assistance with any writing issues you might have, whether you need specific questions answered or want to learn general strategies for more effective communication. His office is located in HOL 372. He is available Mondays (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.), Tuesdays (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.), and Thursdays (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.). E-mail him at areynold@law.ufl.edu to make an appointment. Walk-ins are also accepted. In addition, Reynolds will be conducting writing workshops on Sept. 16, Sept. 23, Oct. 7 and Oct. 14. All four workshops will take place in HOL 285C at 10 a.m. Additional information about the workshops will be provided closer to the scheduled times.

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.

Bob Dekle

“Goldie Robinson: Elderly South Daytona woman was unearthed in trailer park, autopsy confirms” (Sept. 7, 2010, Orlando Sentinel)

A woman’s body was discovered in a homemade grave, and a neighbor is being questioned. A murder case will depend on findings from the Medical Examiner’s Office.

From the article:
“‘Just by the way a body decomposes, a medical examiner can tell you a lot about the manner of death and the cause of death,’ said Bob Dekle, a law professor at the University of Florida who was a prosecutor for 30 years in North Florida.”

Lauren Fasig

“Kids in cuffs” (Sept. 7, 2010, Yamhill Valley News Register)

A recent study led by Fasig was referenced in an article about an Oregon defense lawyer who filed a motion to prevent the shackling of juvenile inmates during their five-minute walk from the detention center to courthouse hearings.

From the article:
“[The lawyer] cited a recent study by Emily Banks, Anna Cowan and Lauren G. Fasig of the Center on Children and Families at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. It found that shackling children on their way to court is psychologically damaging, and that it puts the focus on the humiliation they feel over being cuffed rather than the substance of the proceedings themselves.”

Lyrissa Lidsky

“Florida pastor has legal right to burn Qurans” (Sept. 8, 2010, Associated Press)

Although Dove World Outreach’s pastor may be constitutionally allowed to burn the Koran, the Constitution does not protect him from local laws. The church was denied a burn permit by the City of Gainesville.

From the article:
“‘Denying him the permit had nothing to do with the content of his speech and enforcement of the law presumably has nothing to do with the content of his speech,’ said Lyrissa Lidsky, a professor at the nearby University of Florida College of Law. ‘If I set a bonfire in my front yard here in Gainesville, presumably they would do the same thing.’”

Jon Mills

“Oil Regulations Conference” (Sept. 8, 2010, WRUF AM 850)

WRUF covered a talk given by Mills and Alyson Flournoy on Tuesday where they addressed issues involving the laws and regulations in the Gulf oil spill. Mills called for more regulations that focus on the potential for damage and individual safety.

Alyson Flournoy

“Oil Regulations Conference” (Sept. 8, 2010, WRUF AM 850)

WRUF covered a talk given by Flournoy and Jon Mills on Tuesday where they addressed issues involving the laws and regulations in the Gulf oil spill.

Jeffrey Harrison

Harrison’s new book, “Monopsony in Law and Economics,” has been published by Cambridge University Press. The book addresses potential harm that can be caused by monopsonists, and the laws established to protect against them. It was co-authored by Richard Blair.

NASA image of the Gulf oil spill.

The oil has finally stopped flowing, but for many, the work has just begun.

In an attempt to wade through the sticky aftermath of the Gulf Coast disaster, UF faculty members and students will present an analysis of the legal structures governing the follow-up decisions at a symposium outlining the legal basis for responding to the oil spill. Six UF Law faculty members, one UF sociology faculty member, and six UF Law students will participate in the event, which will take place Thursday, Sept. 16, at 4 p.m. in the University of Florida Levin College of Law’s Martin H. Levin Legal Advocacy Center.

“We are in the initial stages of developing a legal framework for examining the law and policy issues that will be discussed throughout the region in the coming months and even years,” said UF Law Center for Governmental Responsibility Director Jon Mills. Mills, who is chair of UF Law’s Oil Spill Working Group, said the legal researchers are working with natural and social scientists to analyze many different issues including current legislation, commission responses, recovery issues and the claims process.

The symposium is open to the public and is sponsored by the UF Law Oil Spill Working Group, Center for Governmental Responsibility and UF Law Environmental and Land Use Law Program.

For more information, contact Levin College of Law Media Relations Manager Matt Walker at 352-273-0650 or mlwalker@law.ufl.edu.

The issue of judicial activism has recently fomented a polarizing controversy among both laymen and legal scholars. With that in mind, the Federalist Society kicked off its fall lineup of events by hosting attorney Clark Neily to speak about the subject.

Neily, however, does not see judicial activism as being widespread issue.

“I agree that it happens once in a while,” he said, “but not nearly to the extent that a lot of people would have you believe.” Instead, Neily sees the problem of being what he called “judicial abdication.” He explained the term as meaning “refusing to enforce reasonably clear textual limits on government power.”

That Neily views this as being an important issue should come as little surprise to those who know his recent legal background. Neily is a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which bills itself as the “nation’s only libertarian public interest law firm.”

To illustrate the idea of judicial abdication, Neily discussed the 2005 Supreme Court case of Kelo v. City of New London. The case involved the use of eminent domain, a power that governments possess that enables them to seize private property against the will of the owner. The Fifth Amendment prevents this taking unless compensation is afforded, and even then, it was long held that the property taken must then be used for the public good.

What made this case so controversial was that the land to be seized was then going to be redeveloped into nicer homes, a seemingly private interest. Nevertheless, the court found that such a taking was authorized. Neily did not mince words in describing his disagreement with that decision: “I think it’s fair to say that they basically rewrote the public use provision,” he said.

Neily saved even stronger words for the decision in Raich v. Ashcroft. This case, also decided in 2005, dealt with the federal government’s ability to enforce its drug laws in the wake of California’s medical marijuana law. The government claimed the power to enforce drug laws under the commerce clause, but the question that this case presented was whether this power was still applicable when someone grew their own marijuana and used it within the state. The court held that this intrastate activity still fell under the commerce clause. “I think that is clinically insane,” Neily said.

The common link of these and other cases that Neily brought up was that they were decided in a way that limited personal liberties. “A theme that I see in modern constitutional law is the way that courts treat ambiguous provisions of the constitution as a one-way ratchet in favor of government power,” he said.

Although Neily said he views ambiguity in the Constitution as a necessity, he said it makes it even more important that judges are consistent when analyzing ambiguity. Neily, however, explained his belief that most judges change their analysis based on whether it would strengthen government power or individual liberties, and that the odds often seem slanted in the government’s favor.

Prof. Jon Mills and Prof. Alyson Flournoy addressed government regulation in regards to the oil spill

There may be no use crying over spilled milk, but spilled oil is something the government should be concerned about.

Better government regulation in industries affecting the environment, such as the oil industry, was one of the topics addressed at “The 2010 Gulf Oil Spill: A case study in the need for forceful government regulation,” an informational forum held by The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, Levin College of Law Student Chapter, and GreenLAW. Students were given the chance to ask questions of the presenters.

Prof. Alyson Flournoy, director of the environment and land use law program and Prof. Jon Mills, dean emeritus and director of the Center for Governmental Responsibility, served as speakers for the event.

The forum included an analysis of current government policies and their regulatory failures, a discussion of the complexity of the laws dictating who will be compensated for damages from the oil spill and a presentation of possible policy reforms.

“We saw this [event] as an opportunity to explore an issue a lot of people were interested in, and give an analysis [of the oil spill] that people haven’t heard already,” said Henry Perlstein, 3L and president of the UF student chapter of The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy. “[We're] putting it in a bigger context.”

Flournoy and Mills took two different approaches to painting a bigger picture of the legal ramifications of the government policies in place.

Flournoy presented findings from a forthcoming report from the Center for Progressive Reform that she and about 12 other law professors from all over the country recently worked on, in a presentation called “The BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster: A Case Study in Regulatory Failure.” The presentation focused on regulatory failures that put public health, safety and the environment at risk in the implementation of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA).

Some of the regulatory failures under the OCSLA are inadequate standards for safety and environmental protection in operations and spill response, inadequate environmental review processes and inadequate penalties and performance bonds. Under NEPA, regulatory failures included failure to plan for the worst-case scenario, shortcuts through categorical exclusions and inappropriate tiering; and under the ESA, ignoring low probability risks of catastrophic harm to listed species and failure to aggregate low probability risks were identified as problems.

Beyond addressing these problems, proposed reforms mentioned in Flournoy’s presentation included providing adequate funding to perform necessary regulatory functions and to hire, train and retain competent staff; implementing new ethics standards; ending the revolving door and creating a culture that supports the agency’s regulatory mission.

Flournoy’s personal reform suggestions include better government regulation and more funding to enable relevant government agencies to adequately protect health, safety and the environment. After the event, Perlstein said he thinks big reform requires an attitude shift that focuses on protecting people, and not just growth in the industry, to permeate legislation and other action by politicians.

Mills focused on the complexity of determining who was going to get what aid and how much of it they were going to get. He talked about the affected, which includes fishermen, seafood distributors, restaurant owners, beach hotels and others.

“I have been seeking clarity and certainty and I have found very little,” Mills said.

According to Mills, some provisions of the applicable laws are vague and will depend on terpretations by the courts. For example, under the Oil Pollution Act, Mills said that there is compensation provided for the damaged natural resources, but compensation for economic damages to private parties depends on specific facts. The law also varies in the four states that are affected by the oil spill; Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. So under state law, a Florida hotel owner may have different remedies from a hotel owner in Alabama or Louisiana.

“There is no doubt that the current legal structure and remedies will be inadequate for a significant number of people who have been harmed,” he said.

Given the importance of the aftermath of the spill to Florida’s economy, the presenters mentioned what UF and Levin, specifically, are doing to help the state in the wake of the oil spill.

In June, the College created a law school working group with Mills as the head and Flournoy serving as a member, among other faculty members. The working group also includes six law students working on various research projects, such as an analysis of tort remedies available for damaged parties and an evaluation of the process being administered by Kenneth Feinberg, manager of the $20 billion BP Gulf disaster compensation fund. The working group is hosting an oil spill symposium at 4 p.m. on Sept. 16 in the Martin H. Levin Legal Advocacy Center. The six students – Alyssa Cameron, James Davies, Carli Koshal, M. Austin Moretz, Fay Pappas, Jesse Reiblich – will each present their research findings to a faculty panel that will raise questions and provide critiques.

Students interested in being a part of the working group should contact Mills.

But for students who may not have the chance to do research with the working group, there are still ways to get involved with oil spill remedies.

“People could explore and ask questions, and stay informed,” Perlstein said. “They themselves can be advocates for change. You don’t have to be a senator to influence policy. You can be an average person and influence people around you by informing them,” he said.

“It’s like the saying goes,” Perlstein said, “you can either help a lot of people a little bit or help a small amount of people a lot.”

UF Law students Andrew Labbe, Leigh Anne Siddle, Monica Haddad and Jordan Peterson (supported by alternate Daniel Lazaro) argued before a panel of federal and state judges Sept. 10 in the 25th Annual Zimmerman Kiser Sutcliffe Moot Court Final Four Competition. The bench featured a distinguished panel of state and federal judges: The Honorable Jacqueline R. Griffin, 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.

The oralists argued a civil rights case involving Fourth Amendment issues concerning an unlawful search and seizure of files on a student’s personal laptop, the student’s removal from the school newspaper staff and censorship of her articles in violation of her First Amendment right to free speech before the judicial panel and a standing-room-only audience in the Martin H. Levin Advocacy Center.

The students were not the only ones exited about the competition. “I like to judge these events because the quality and enthusiasm of the students blows me away,” Judge Jacqueline Griffin said. “I find it invigorating.”

While all competitors made outstanding and persuasive arguments, the Respondents, Monica Haddad and Jordan Peterson, prevailed, winning the Best Team award. Jordan Peterson won Best Overall, Monica Haddad won Best Oralist, and Aaron Wasserstrom won Best Brief.

To see the competitors’ biographies, read last week’s story.

The University of Florida Levin College of Law has been ranked as the fifth best law school in the nation for Hispanic students by Hispanic Business magazine. UF Law has been ranked in the top 10 eight times in the past decade.

“It is exciting, but not surprising, that UF is recognized for its firm commitment to diversity, and its success with the Latina/o community,” said UF Law Professor Berta Hernández-Truyol.

Hernández-Truyol, along with Pedro Malavet, Juan Perea and Daniel Sokol are the full-time Hispanic professors at UF Law, making the college a national leader in the number of tenured and tenure-track Hispanic faculty members. “Many law schools do not have a single Hispanic law professor, and few have more than one,” Malavet said. “We have earned our place in the top 10 by developing a strongly diverse community with a strong critical mass of Hispanics at every level of our school.”

In 2009, UF Law had 107 Hispanic students enrolled with a 99 percent retention rate for the 2008-2009 academic year, and 42 J.D. degrees were awarded to Hispanic students last year.

UF Law’s commitment to leadership and diversity is also evident in its alumni.

Last month, Hispanic-American UF Law graduate Stephen N. Zack became the first Hispanic-American president of the American Bar Association. Zack is the fifth UF Law alumnus to hold the prestigious position. He is also a founding member of the Cuban-American Bar Association, and was the first Hispanic-American president of The Florida Bar.

Zack will deliver the Marshall M. Criser Distinguished Lecture at UF Law next month and will present this fall’s Book Awards.

Hispanic Business magazine also looks at Hispanic student organizations, mentorship programs and incentives that might make the school more appealing to Hispanic students.

Hispanic student organizations at UF Law include Latin Law Students Association, Caribbean Law Students Association and International Law Society. The college also offers mentoring opportunities through the Puerto Rican Bar Association and the UF Law Minority Mentoring Program.

“Florida has a strong focus on Latin America, having both summer programs and a joint degree – J.D. and M.A. – with Latin American Studies, allowing students who want to pursue that course of study an excellent opportunity,” Hernández-Truyol said.

“The programs and resources create a very welcoming environment for all students, including Latina/o students,” she said.

In addition to a strong presence on the faculty, UF Law also employs Latinas/os in administration, including Assistant Dean of Admissions Michelle Adorno and Director of Admissions Noemar Castro, Hernández-Truyol said.