Jeffrey Davis
Professor of Law

On Saturday, March 12, Professor Davis participated in a three-person panel at the 35th Annual Alexander Paskay Bankruptcy Seminar. The topic was Effect of Bankruptcy Code Sections 1111(b) and 506 in Recent Real Estate Bankruptcies.

Joseph Little
Professor Emeritus

“FGCU legal costs surpass $200,000 in ex-provost’s wrongful firing lawsuit” (March 11, 2011, Naples News)

Little commented on a labor lawsuit filed by Bonnie Yegidis against Florida Gulf Coast University. The suit was filed in June 2009, and as of January the university had spent $210,000 defending itself in the case.

From the article:
“Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s probably an unusual amount if a case of that sort that went on that long,” said Joseph Little, professor emeritus at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

If Yegidis chooses to appeal, she faces an uphill battle, Little said.

“When you’ve got a jury verdict on the matter that was fully litigated, it’s extremely hard to get it overturned,” Little said. “So, appealing the case would cost the plaintiff some more money. Just getting the transcript, for example, of a two- or three-day trial would cost $2,000.”

“Voters may decide to make major changes in Florida’s courts” (March 15, 2011, The Gainesville Sun)

Little weighed in on potential changes to the judicial system being proposed by lawmakers, including dividing the Florida Supreme Court into two sections – one criminal and one civil – and requiring all appellate judges to a face a confirmation vote in the Senate.

From the article:
“This political attack on the court is troubling,” said University of Florida law professor emeritus Joe Little. “Judicial independence is critical in our system of government. You might look at this way: a free and independent press and a free and independent judiciary have been the two agencies that have historically kept the legislature and executive from becoming tyrants.”

Diane Mazur
Professor of Law

“Return of ROTC at Ivies could build bridges” (March 9, 2011, Army Times),

Mazur addresses myths that have grown up around the absence of ROTC programs at Ivy League schools, dispelling the notion that they were banned, but instead left because the military needed to downsize the program. She also discussed the benefits of the ROTC returning to the campuses that it left.

From the article:
Because of the benefits students and the military can draw from interacting, Mazur said she hopes Obama’s call for colleges to embrace ROTC will at least generate honest discussion.

“Maybe it will give us the opportunity to have a very candid conversation about what’s the place of the military in the university and the university in the military,” Mazur said.

Jennifer Zedalis
Legal Skills Professor

“Hernando judiciary holds firm in courtroom space fight” (March 15, 2011, St. Petersburg Times)

Zedalis recently commented on a current debate in Hernando County over judicial spaces. She stated that it wasn’t necessary for each judge to have a courtroom. Zedalis’ statements drew criticism from some who are arguing for more courtrooms. In this article, Zedalis responds to the criticism.

From the article:
“I can’t believe the newspaper quotes a college professor about the need for courtrooms,” said (Attorney Joe) Mason, who graduated from UF’s law school. “A college professor is probably the last person who would know how a courtroom ought to be scheduled and what needs of courts might be.”

Mason, clearly, had no idea whose credentials he was degrading.

Zedalis has practiced law in Florida for nearly three decades. She is serving her third term on the Florida Bar’s Executive Council of Criminal Law Section. She also heads the law school’s Trial Practice Program and regularly works alongside and discusses legal issues with 10 or more county, circuit and federal judges. Friday, in fact, two of those judges will be teaching in her classroom.

Zedalis has worked as an assistant public defender in two circuits (including this one) and as a County Court division chief; she has run her own private practice and spent many hours in courtrooms at the Alachua County Criminal Justice Center in Gainesville.

“I know a lot more about what’s going in Florida courtrooms than whoever it was who said that,” she said. “My perspective comes from experience.”

Professor Eugene Kontorovich, a professor at Northwestern University School of Law who specializes in constitutional and international law, presented an analysis Wednesday of international law's response to the Somali pirate attacks. (Photo by Nicole Safker)

“Piracy is the classic, original, international crime,” Kontorovich said. Rates of pirate attacks doubled in 2008, doubled again in 2009, and have increased since then, Kontorovich said.

These increases are despite the international community’s unprecedented show of naval cooperation. Vessels of over 40 nations are all there trying to bring safety to the high seas.

Although this sounds very promising, the results have “been basically zero,” Kontorovich said.

Kontorovich asserted, and Willis agreed, that allowing ships to carry arms could solve many of the piracy issues.

“No armed vessel has successfully been taken by pirates,” Kontorovich said. “Somali pirates are in these rickety boats and don’t inherently have the upper hand.”

Professor Kontorovich specializes in constitutional and international law at Northwestern. He is a leading expert on maritime piracy and universal jurisdiction, and has been called on to advise lawyers in historic piracy trials around the world. Currently, Kontorovich is writing a book, Justice at Sea: Piracy and the Limits of International Criminal Law.

The University of Florida Federalist Society presented the lecture.

Eugene K. Pettis (JD 85) has represented major national businesses such as Starbucks and Exxon Mobil.

“My job brings about not just the responsibility for litigating, but I also must manage my client’s needs prior to and after any legal issues arise,” Pettis said. “My clients know they’re getting an experienced lawyer and a counselor to their business and legal matters.”

For more than 25 years, Pettis has worked to stand out from the massive field of lawyers in Florida and across the nation. In doing so, he took risks, marketed himself and built his firm into a business.

The result was enormous success for the Fort Lauderdale native who has represented Starbucks, Exxon Mobil and other Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies in civil litigation.

However, Pettis grew up resisting his mother’s insistence that he should become a lawyer. He originally enrolled as a pre-dental student at the University of Florida, completing advanced chemistry and mathematics courses. He left the program after realizing that he wasn’t passionate about the subjects.

“It was then that I realized maybe Mom was right,” he said.

After a brief stint focusing on an interdisciplinary study of environmental law, Pettis switched to political science.

Continuing his studies as a Gator, Pettis enrolled in the Levin College of Law, where he became heavily involved in moot court.

“Even though it focused on appellate-type work, it helped sharpen my advocacy skills,” he said.

Upon graduation, Pettis returned to Fort Lauderdale to work for the firm of Conrad, Scherer and James. When one of the firm’s senior partners and his mentor, Rex Conrad, retired in 1991, Pettis and James Haliczer chose to leave and to start their own firm. Richard Schwamm joined the firm in 1996, establishing the trio’s current firm.

“I chose to step out on faith as a young lawyer and develop ownership of my own firm,” Pettis said.

Since then, he has worked hard to develop his firm into a business that his clients and the public can trust.

“One thing is to practice law, but the next thing is to build a practice into a successful legal business, which encompasses excellence in law and client service,” he said.

Pettis is successful on both fronts. He was included in the 2010 and 2011 editions of The Best Lawyers in America and earned Martindale-Hubbell’s top AV rating among multiple other professional recognitions.

In the field of medical malpractice and personal injury, he has earned many favorable verdicts for the defendants he represented and multimillion-dollar settlements and verdicts for the plaintiffs who hired him. He also represents corporate clients in areas of commercial litigation and employment matters.

Pettis also represents hospitals, the School Board of Broward County and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

In his career, he has had more than 60 trials of complex legal matters.

“I have fun structuring the case and the case strategy,” Pettis said, “but the true test for litigators is to lay out that strategy in front of a jury and have (it) accept your case as the most persuasive.”

To build a successful business, Pettis has made his firm a staple in the communities of Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, where a second branch of his firm exists.

“We spend a lot of time trying to make Broward and Orange counties better places,” Pettis said.

Rooted in humble backgrounds, Pettis always made community involvement a priority in his personal and professional lives.

Pettis grew up the youngest of seven children, and he watched as his father, a janitor and a waiter, and his mother, a teacher’s assistant, managed to make ends meet.

His family was named by Nancy Reagan as a Great American Family in 1985 and was awarded a trip to the White House for the honor.

“It was truly a symbol of the job my mother and father did in raising all of us,” Pettis said.

In honor of his mother’s commitment to education, Pettis and his wife, Shiela, and other siblings have created several scholarships and endowments in her name to help students in Fort Lauderdale and Broward County afford a college degree. In 2004, Pettis and his wife established the Pettis Family Endowed Scholarship, which gives annual scholarships to selected students at Broward College.

“You have to give people the tools to better themselves,” Pettis said. “Only then will they be able to stand on their own two feet.”

Pettis continues to hold strong family ties. He has two daughters, Shenele, 21, and Shardè, 16. His nephew, Yohance A. Pettis (JD 04), is an associate at his firm.

Pettis also remains committed to UF. He is a member of the Law Center Association’s Board of Trustees and served eight years on the board of directors for the University of Florida Foundation.

“I think that there is no more rewarding career than the practice of law,” Pettis said. “But to benefit from its richness, you have to get involved in your community and practice.”

FTC Commissioner William E. Kovacic delivered the second Bayard Wickliffe Heath Memorial Lecture on March 14. He has served as an FTC commissioner since 2006.

The March 14 lecture titled “From Dominance to Oligopoly: The United States and the Future Development of Global Competition Policy Standards” was the second in the Heath lecture series.

As a law student at Columbia University in the 1970s, Kovacic decided to pursue a career in international competition law after he was advised to “never go into a field that would have no practical significance.” How times have changed, Kovacic said. The period of the U.S. monopoly of the laws ended in the late 1980s with the European merger creation. Now, he reports that 120 countries have competition laws.

The United States’ best opportunity to remain a major player in the field of international competition law is to develop better ideas, Kovacic said. “Dominance no longer permits the United States to set global standards, and it will have to use persuasion.”

Kovacic also recommended future collaborations with institutions of higher education to utilize the country’s national advantage of its large resource of academic centers and think tanks.

Kovacic has served as an FTC commissioner since 2006 and as chairman from March 2008 to March 2009. He was previously FTC’s general counsel. His experience includes teaching at the George Mason University School of Law and the George Washington University Law School. In addition to practicing antitrust and government contracts law, Kovacic served on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee.

The Heath Memorial Lecture Series was made possible by a gift from Inez Heath, Ph.D., widow of Bayard “Wick” Heath. Before his death in 2008, Heath was the senior competition consultant with Info Tech, a Gainesville firm specializing in statistical and econometric consulting, expert witness testimony and antitrust law.

U.S. News & World Report has released its annual rankings of the nation’s graduate schools. The 2012 rankings place the University of Florida Levin College of Law in a tie for 24th among public law schools and 47th overall.

The UF Law Graduate Tax Program continues to rank first among publics and was second overall this year. Its Environmental Law Program rose to sixth among publics and 13th overall.

The law school’s growing strength in the area of dispute resolution was recognized with a specialty area ranking of seventh among publics and 19th overall. UF Law continues to be rated highly in terms of reputation – tying at 17th among publics and 38th overall in peer assessment, and 17th among publics and 39th overall in lawyer/judge assessment.

“UF Law tax faculty have ranked in the top three in the U.S. News specialty tax area for as long as they have published the list,” said Associate Dean for Graduate Tax Mike Friel. “It is gratifying to know we remain listed as the top public school and second overall, and credit the scholarship and reputation of our outstanding faculty for this distinction.”

UF Law Environmental and Land Use Law Program Director Alyson Flournoy said, “We’re pleased to be in the company of highly regarded programs such as Vermont, Lewis & Clark, California-Berkeley, Stanford, Georgetown and Maryland, to name just a few.”

Robin Davis, director of the UF Law Institute for Dispute Resolution, said, “I’m happy to see us ranked highly in the specialty rankings in dispute resolution, an area that is steadily increasing in emphasis and importance to the legal profession and to institutions in general, including here at the University of Florida.”

UF Law Dean Robert Jerry sounded a note of caution about the report.

“We are, of course, pleased with this recognition of our strong tax, environmental and dispute resolution programs, and that we continue to be ranked as a top-tier school, with a peer reputation ranking in the 30s. However, I am on record every year, regardless of how well we do, in stating my belief that rankings such as these are not a true reflection of institutional quality,” Jerry said.

“We carefully track our own progress, and we know that we are very good and getting better every year in the things that matter – including class credentials, our reputation in the legal and academic communities, employment and graduate study opportunities, and bar passage rates,” Jerry said. “Couple that with our long history of producing national leaders, including current ABA President Stephen Zack, and it’s easy to see why we are widely regarded as one of the nation’s best values in legal education.”