All seven Florida Supreme Court justices to judge Maguire Appellate Advocacy Competition on Friday
The law school community is invited to watch as members of the Florida Moot Court Team, (pictured at right), showcase their oral advocacy skills to all seven members of the Florida Supreme Court on Friday. The 27th annual Maguire Appellate Advocacy Competition, formerly known as the Raymer F. Maguire Moot Court Final Four Competition, will be held at 10 a.m. in UF Law’s Martin H. Levin Advocacy Center Courtroom. The event is free and open to the public — the law school community is encouraged to attend. The exhibition allows moot court team members to receive useful critiques regarding their oral arguments as they prepare for the American Bar Association’s National Appellate Advocacy Competition. This year’s team consists of Wilbert Vancol (3L), Leah Edelman (3L), Katie Tinsley (3L), David Hughes (3L), David Evans (3L) and Monica Haddad (2L). During the exhibition, Vancol and Edelman will present arguments for Petitioner, and Haddad and Evans will argue for Respondent. The Maguire exhibition provides UF Law students a unique opportunity to observe these outstanding law students exhibit their oral advocacy skills. Providing critiques for the oral arguments will be the justices of the Florida Supreme Court: Chief Justice Charles T. Canady, Justice Barbara J. Pariente, Justice R. Fred Lewis, Justice Peggy A. Quince, Justice Ricky Polston, Justice Jorge Labarga (JD 79) and Justice James E.C. Perry. First-year law students interested in being a part of the Florida Moot Court Team are highly encouraged to attend the Maguire Competition to see the team in action. Additionally, the team will hold a question and answer session for all interested 1Ls Wednesday, March 2, at noon. Pizza will be provided at the session, and 1Ls will have the opportunity to ask questions about the Florida Moot Court Team, the try-out process and general appellate advocacy issues. For questions regarding the information session, please contact Jennifer Sharp.

Faculty scholarship & activities
Last week, Professor Mark Fenster discussed conspiracy theories in a radio interview; Professor Gugliuzza was a panelist in a recent Washington, D.C., panel looking at court decisions; Professor Amy Mashburn talked about a class action lawsuit; Professor McMahon was published in Tax Notes; Dean Emeritus Jon Mills was appointed to an ABA task force and the results of a CGR study are referenced in an article on Florida Main Street programs.
Faculty scholarship & activities »

UF Law’s Center on Children & Families co-hosts presentations on collaborative and therapeutic family law
Barry Law Review and UF Law Center on Children and Families will host “Collaborative and Therapeutic Family Law: Theory and Practice” Friday, March 11, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Orlando. Area and state experts will offer their expertise. To register, contact Debbie Willis willisd@law.ufl.edu or 352-273-0613 by Feb. 22 and fill out this form.

Submit art for Sixth Annual UF Law Student/Faculty Art Show by March 14
Mark your calendars for the upcoming UF Law Student/Faculty Art Show Wednesday, March 16, in the Legal Information Center at 7 p.m. The Art Law Society will have a silent auction for selected works and all proceeds will benefit Shands Arts in Medicine program. There also will be wine, food and live music. If you are interested in submitting your artwork, send the following information to f.c.tripp@gmail.com by March 14 at 5 p.m.: title, artist’s name, date created, dimensions of the work/length of video, medium (i.e., oil on canvas, photography, etc) and whether you would like to donate the work for the silent auction.

CSRRR hosts Harvard Professor Charles Ogletree Thursday, March 24
The Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations presents its spring lecture with Charles J. Ogletree, Jesse Climenko Professor of Law and director of the Charles Hamilton, Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Harvard University. The lecture takes place at noon, March 24, in Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom (HOL 180) with a reception and book signing at 1 p.m. Ogletree will discuss his book, The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class and Crime in America (Palgrave Macmillan 2010). This event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit http://www.law.ufl.edu/centers/csrrr/events.shtml.

‘Coffee with the Dean’ resumes Wednesday
Dean Robert Jerry will resume a program he has hosted for several years called “Coffee with the Dean” Wednesday, Feb. 23, at 9 a.m. Up to 15 students can sign up, first-come, first-served, to meet him in the Faculty Dining Room for coffee and doughnuts. He will have three sessions this semester and each will last about an hour. If you have concerns, questions, a compliment about a member of the faculty or staff, or topics you would like to discuss with the dean, please sign-up by sending an e-mail to Ellen Robinson at robinsone@law.ufl.edu. In addition, the John Marshall Bar Association will host another Town Hall meeting Wednesday, March 30, at noon in the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom (HOL 180).

Law student to publish work in e-book, assume editorship of the Global Journal of Peer Review
After graduation, Eric N. Grosch (3L) will publish Clinical-Performance Peer-Review: The Triumph of Fallacy, a work unique in its scientific, logical, legal and philosophical treatment of its medical topic. It contains: (1) proof that clinical-performance peer-review, as practiced, cannot generate reliable findings and that it is counterproductive of its claimed purpose, to maintain and improve quality of clinical care. (2) Evidence that, for clinical-performance peer-review, courts disregard proper legal principles and logic to which they adhere in other cases. (3) Evidence that state legislatures and Congress have produced misguided laws, establishing clinical-performance peer-review-based on no evidence of its efficacy in maintaining or improving quality of clinical care or of its accuracy in identifying good or errant physicians or in distinguishing them. (4) Solutions to enable decision-makers to avoid pitfalls and to found the healthcare-system on principles that fulfill its clinical mission. (5) Defense tactics against bad-faith peer-review.

Princeton Review seeks input from law students
The Princeton Review has once again named the University of Florida Levin College of Law one of the best law schools in the nation. Distinguished schools will be profiled in the 2012 edition of Best Law Schools. In order to help them represent UF Law accurately, please fill out the following survey to author a new “Students Say” profile and update our ratings.

Of particular importance was the Florida Department of Health, which not only is weathering rough economic conditions but also stands to undergo significant changes thanks to the recently enacted federal health care law. When it came to the attention of the Department of Health team that a well-qualified student was at the Levin College of Law, Moseley was asked to join the group.

“Basically, our mission was to do due diligence on the Department of Health,” Moseley said. “You could really get lost in the weeds, but we tried to stay big picture, so we focused on their mission, their culture and their processes.”

To that end, Moseley and the rest of the Department of Health team traveled the state, collected vast amounts of information, interviewed individuals, and compiled all of that into recommendations for how to move forward.

This was the latest of numerous acts of public service that Ryan has engaged in since stepping on the University of Florida campus in the fall of 2003. He knew he wanted to get involved on campus, but even he could probably not have predicted just how much he’d accomplish during his time in Gainesville.

While studying finance as an undergrad, he found time to serve as a senator in student government, later becoming budget appropriations chairman, and then student body treasurer. Though acquiring these positions alone would be a significant achievement, it only scratches the surface of what Moseley has done.

He also served as vice president and president of his fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, and was a member of Florida Blue Key, where he served as marketing director for Gator Growl.

During his first and second year of law school, Moseley partnered with former Gator quarterback Tim Tebow to encourage student involvement in community service and raise money for children issues. Together, they raised more than $500,000 for Shands Hospital and Uncle Dick’s Home — a home for orphans in the Philippines.

Along the way, he was recognized for his academic achievements, as well as his leadership and service. He was selected as a J. Wayne Reitz scholar, won the John M. Kinzer award and several others, and was chosen to enter the UF Hall of Fame.

Moseley’s accolades culminated in his election as student body president for the 2007-08 year, during which he was also earning a master’s degree in international business. Fast forward three years, and Moseley is preparing to graduate from the Levin College of Law. After graduation, he will work for Barclays Capital as an analyst in its health care group.

And Moseley and his team found that forming recommendations for the governor more closely resembled an auditor than a political consultant.

“Politics really wasn’t our concern,” Moseley said. “When we put those recommendations forward, we included the caveat that some of it might not be possible,” he added.

While political feasibility could not be ignored, it was up to the governor to choose how to navigate those waters. “That next step obviously gets more tricky,” Moseley said.

All of this was done between late November and late December — a time when law students are already notoriously busy as they prepare for final exams. How did he handle it all? “Really late nights, really early mornings, and fitting things in where I could.”

The short time between the election and the new governor’s assumption of office meant that much had to be done in a very small amount of time. But Moseley has no regrets, and in fact, called it “an absolutely amazing opportunity.”

This was hardly the first time that Moseley had to take a lot of information and distill it into a single course of action. As student body president, he served as the student voice for 50,000 students who varied in their views tremendously — and was tasked with pulling all those opinions into a cohesive plan.

Moseley said that his time as student body president taught him the importance of getting a wide range of views on issues.

“One way to do it is to look at something and try to make your best determination,” he said. “But the best way, I found, was to build a group of people that was diverse, and would give you a diverse opinion. Then, you can aggregate all those opinions, and put forth your choice.”

While Moseley has chosen not to pursue a career in law, at least for now, he credits his time at the Levin College of Law for shaping his analysis, and is particularly happy that he was able to chart his specific course through the program.

“The University of Florida does a great job of providing you the courses that you need to allow you to pursue what you want.”

J. Peter Byrne, professor of law and director of the Environmental Law and Policy Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, and William Rodgers, Stimson Bullitt Professor of Law at University of Washington School of Law, delivered a lecture entitled “Global Warming and its Newest Challenges: Mitigation and Acidification.”

Professor Byrne discussed possible ways humans can adapt to sea-level rise while also attempting to mitigate climate change’s effects. He predicted that we will have to re-evaluate our existing legislation to deal with climate change issues.

“The road of legal adaptation to the sea-level rise will be long and tortuous,” Professor Byrne said. “Creativity and experimentation,” he said, would provide the proper balance between private property rights with the predicted sea-level rise.

Professor Rodgers added that the “integration of science with the law is a big part of environmental law.” Successful environmental lawyers “can’t be intimidated by the science.”

Other presenters included Sarah Chasis, Natural Resources Defense Council; Cynthia Drew, University of Miami; Florida Solicitor General Scott Makar; Buzz Thompson, Stanford Law School; and Michael Allan Wolf, University of Florida Levin College of Law. The symposium also included presentations from UF Law students Tony Bajoczky and Celia Thacker.

The presentations focused on sea-level rise mitigation, oil spill litigation, the drilling moratoria, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, ocean acidification and judicial takings.

“Regardless of whether you are a lawyer, all Floridians will likely be involved with environmental or land use issues at some point, and this symposium gives people a great opportunity to hear and learn about relevant issues both in our state and nationally,” Bajoczky (3L) said.

Bajoczky’s presentation focused on policy issues surrounding the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the difficult task of striking a balance between protecting natural resources and the demand for oil and gas.

The Florida Bar Environmental and Land Use Law Section and the Florida Bar City, County, and Local Government Section co-sponsored the event.

In addition to receiving an award for submitting a top-ranked memorial, the team advanced to the semifinalist round of the international competition. Named as one of the top four teams in the South, the team broke the record set by last year’s UF team.

In advancing to the semifinals, the UF team unseated the top-ranked University of Georgia School of Law, which had been the reigning champions of the South Super Regionals for the past several years.

Presenting sophisticated arguments on often-undeveloped topics in international law before a mock International Court of Justice required a significant amount of preparation and practice. Guided by student coaches Taylor and Blickensderfer, team members invested 10 to 15 hours each week practicing, discussing and shaping arguments, while taking their normal full-time class schedule.

“I am very proud of everyone on this team,” said Jon Mills, dean emeritus and faculty advisor of the team. “Through hard work and dedication, our team has established our college as a major force in the premier international law competition.”

The team has barely paused to savor this record-setting victory, as its attention has already turned to next year’s competition. Levenberg, rising vice president of the Jessup team, said, “We are all really proud of how well we did as a team. And now we’re ready to prepare next year’s team to win the International Rounds.”

This year’s conference — “It’s Not Easy Being Green: Our Energy Future” — will focus on renewable and non-renewable sources of energy; how that energy is distributed and its relationship to economic development, environmental protection and social justice.

The keynote speakers at the conference will be Buddy MacKay, a former Florida governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. representative and state legislator, and Princeton University Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Robert Socolow — an expert on global energy resources and climate change mitigation, and a pioneer in environmental studies.

The conference will feature a wide variety of panels dealing with various energy-related topics, including the 2010 Gulf oil spill and the licensing of new nuclear power plants in Florida. Guest panelists will range from representatives of government agencies and public interest organizations to international scholars and industry experts. Two Saturday morning workshops will focus on green jobs and what endangered species laws mean to the average homeowner.

The Public Interest Environmental Conference provides a forum for an exchange of ideas among private, government, and public interest lawyers; students and academics; environmental professionals, advocates and activists, and the interested public.

Media are welcome to attend the conference, but must register to attend Friday’s banquet, which is filling up fast. Registration will also be accepted at the conference on Thursday and Friday. For more information, agenda and to register, visit http://www.law.ufl.edu/piec/.

The conference is free for all UF students, faculty, and staff.

The new Advocacy Center courtroom – as part of the Martin H. Levin Advocacy Center — will serve as a key component in placing UF Law at the forefront of legal advocacy education. The fully functional trial and appellate courtroom contains a 98-seat gallery, a bench for seven judges, a jury box, attorneys’ tables, judge’s chambers and a jury deliberation room.

Before serving as the president of ABC News from 1997 to 2010, Westin graduated from the University of Michigan Law School, was a partner in the Washington law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and worked as an adjunct professor at Harvard and Georgetown universities, where he taught international civil litigation.

While at ABC News, Westin oversaw all editorial and business aspects of the news division, supervised coverage of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, the 9/11 attacks, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and the recent economic crisis. While Westin was president, ABC News was awarded 11 George Foster Peabody Awards, 13 Alfred I. duPont Awards, five George Polk Awards, more than 40 News and Documentary Emmys and more than 40 Edward R. Murrow Awards.

The courtroom opening is by ticket or invitation only. Media are welcome to attend, but space is limited. Please contact Matt Walker in the UF Law Communications office for further information (352-273-0653 or mlwalker@law.ufl.edu).

Tickets will be available to UF Law students on a first-come, first-served basis and will be available in the Office of Student Affairs until they are gone. Students must present a Gator 1 card when picking up tickets. Faculty and staff interested in tickets should see Doris Perron in the Dean’s Office.

Although the courtroom opening ceremony is limited to those who received invitations or obtained tickets, everyone is cordially invited to attend the UF Law Trial Team Exhibition at 2 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 24, in the courtroom and the 27th annual Maguire Appellate Advocacy Competition at 10 a.m. on Feb. 25, also in the new courtroom. The Maguire Competition will feature all seven Florida Supreme Court justices judging the competition. Both events are free and open to the public and will be a good opportunity to view UF Law’s new facilities and see students showcase their advocacy skills.

The Martin H. Levin Advocacy Center and courtroom was made possible by a number of donors including Fredric Levin and his sister-in-law, Teri Levin. Fredric Levin contributed $2 million to the center as the lead gift to this project and Teri Levin contributed a $1 million gift in honor of her late husband, Allen Richard Levin. Teri Levin’s contribution brought the total of Levin family gifts to the law school to almost $30 million, including state matching funds. Other donors who helped make the Advocacy Center possible include the Baynard Trust, the late Robert M. Montgomery, of West Palm Beach and Robert Kerrigan of Kerrigan, Estess, McLeod & Thompson in Pensacola.