“To what greater object, to what greater character, can we aspire as lawyers than to assist the helpless and friendless in a worthy cause? I say there is none. To devote your skill and energy to the plight of another, without the promise of a material reward for oneself, is what sets us apart as professionals.” -John Adams, 1761

Among poverty groups, the immigrant poor constitute one of the most vulnerable populations in need of legal services. They face numerous obstacles in their quest for relief from deportation – language barriers, detainment in facilities located far from loved ones and the availability of legal services, distrust of government authorities, and a lack of familiarity with the legal system in the United States. Furthermore, the stakes are incredibly high – one hearing can determine whether one will have the right to remain in this country, be reunited with family members, or be able to earn a living. Without knowledgeable counsel to assist these individuals in navigating the complicated maze of immigration laws, their chances of overcoming these barriers and presenting a successful claim for relief are slim to none.

I am aware of the struggles immigrants face firsthand. My parents and I fled to the United States from Ukraine as refugees when I was eight years old, trading ties to friends and family for a life that was free from religious persecution. My parents’ sacrifice taught me the value of liberty at an early age and inspired me to use my knowledge of the law to help others legally achieve their fundamental human rights.

As a Florida Bar Foundation Public Interest Law Fellow this past year, I have had the privilege to assist a local Gainesville immigration attorney, Mr. Evan George, with pro bono cases. My fellowship has been an invaluable learning experience because it has allowed me to work directly with clients on cases including asylum on the basis of sexual orientation, Haitian temporary protective status, derivative citizenship claims, U-visas for victims of severe crimes, and foreign residence requirement waivers. In addition to learning about various immigration policies and procedures, I have had the opportunity to observe the critical role an attorney plays in conducting research, procuring documentary evidence, and preparing clients for immigration court hearings. I encourage anyone interested in getting hands-on experience within the evolving area of immigration law to apply for the Public Interest Law Fellowship or contact the UF Immigration Law Association for more ways to get involved.

Marianna Tuninskaya is a 2010-11 Public Interest Law Fellow. The Public Interest Law Fellowship ship Program is funded by The Florida Bar Foundation to promote public interest law, and offered at the Levin College of Law by the Center for Governmental Responsibility.

Before starting my fellowship placement with Southern Legal Counsel (SLC), my concept of “constitutional law” was mostly a federal one. This was unfortunate because it ignored the alternatives state constitutions offer for enforcing rights sometimes not enshrined in the federal version. No case brought this fact home to me more than SLC’s ongoing case ofCitizens for Strong Schools v. Florida State Board of Education.

Brought in 2009 on behalf of citizens, parents, and students, the case is a challenge to the current implementation of Florida’s public school system based on Article IX of the Florida Constitution.

The Article provides that:

“The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require.”

This is as opposed to the federal Constitution, which the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted to not enshrine education as a fundamental right.

The case makes comprehensive allegations that the state is failing to meet Article IX’s standards. As evidence, the complaint cites Florida’s abysmal performance in graduation and retention rates, the state’s shifting its funding responsibility to school districts, and the difficulty schools have hiring and retaining qualified teachers. Most recently, the case survived a motion to dismiss though it seems destined for Florida Supreme Court review.

Though this may seem like a novel claim, it is actually part of a nationwide trend of school system challenges in state courts. This has resulted in a confusing patchwork of outcomes. Some state courts have found school quality claims are non-justiciable under the political question doctrine. Others have found violations and ordered changes, with mixed results. Sadly, some state courts have identified violations while refusing to mandate changes. If Federal constitutional law has one thing over state variants, perhaps it is uniformity.

Helping SLC with this case as a Public Interest Law Fellow has given me the opportunity to grow both as a person and a legal advocate. Before this case, words like “millage” and “complex litigation” were legal concepts that meant little to me. By aiding SLC, I have had the opportunity to work toward change while witnessing firsthand the skill and dedication necessary to be a civil rights advocate. Really though, SLC has been aiding me. My outlook on education and public interest law has been changed for the better.

Octavio Simoes-Ponce is a 2010-11 Public Interest Law Fellow. The Public Interest Law Fellowship Program is funded by The Florida Bar Foundation to promote public interest law, and offered at the Levin College of Law by the Center for Governmental Responsibility.

As a Florida Bar Foundation Public Interest Law Fellow, I assisted the staff attorneys at Three Rivers Legal Services. At my work site, I developed exceptional rapport with all of the attorneys and staff there and I gained valuable experience. I had several short assignments and one large project. The assignments ranged from research topics on proper service on a party, when a bail bondsman must report a judgment, the effect of serving a motion for summary judgment and then amending the complaint, a contract to sell land without indicating the type of deed to be conveyed, and Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) actions. The large project was a compilation of all of the Florida statutes that allowed for attorney fees. This project was extremely helpful to the office because the attorneys could quickly evaluate whether they could afford to litigate an expensive case for an indigent client. If a pro bono-oriented organization can collect its fees when it is successful at litigation, then it can more easily help other clients because it preserves the limited resources at the office.

I also had the opportunity to work with the other Florida Bar Foundation fellows. In the fall of 2010, we put on an informational session entitled: “Criminalization of Homelessness: Legal Issues in Providing Services to the Homeless”. Experienced attorneys and professors spoke on the plight of the homeless right here in Alachua County. It was an informative info-session held in the Martin Levin Advocacy Center. This spring semester, we explained how to apply for clinics and obtain fellowships and externships in an info-session entitled: “Two Birds One Stone: Serving your Community While enhancing your Legal Education”. We wanted those who attended to know exactly what to do so that they too could give back to the community.

The work that I completed in this fellowship was very fulfilling. Those who rely on public interest practitioners have no one else to advocate their rights, either because they cannot afford a private attorney or because they lack the sophistication to do so. Although we cannot help everyone, we make a difference in the lives of those to whom it matters the most. These clients are victims of domestic violence, predatory lending, prohibited treatment by private landlords, and many others. They need our help. Please remain aware of the need for public interest law and please contribute your time for such a worthy cause.

Lamar R. Miller is a 2010-11 Public Interest Law Fellow. The Public Interest Law Fellowship Program is funded by The Florida Bar Foundation to promote public interest law, and offered at the Levin College of Law by the Center for Governmental Responsibility.

Prior to coming to law school, the criminal justice system was a very simple concept to me. If a person committed a crime, that person should be held responsible. Once people repaid their debt to society through some penalty, they would earn the right to return to society and start again. However, it was not until I walked the long halls of prisons in Starke, Lake City, and Cocoa, Fla., that I got a little glimpse of how difficult the “starting again” really is.

I gained access to these prisons through The Florida Bar Foundation Public Interest Law Fellowship. This past year I worked at Florida Institutional Legal Services doing work on Inmate Reentry Programs and Prisoner Rights issues. Florida Institutional Legal Services, Inc. (FILS) is a nonprofit law office that provides free legal assistance to indigent people incarcerated in Florida.

While working at FILS, I researched issues ranging from the physical abuse of prisoners to the inhumane treatment of the mentally and physically ill. However, my most interesting work was participating in FILS Inmate Re-entry Program. Through the aid of attorneys and paralegals, FILS provides legal and administrative help to inmates teaching them the process to survive once they are released from incarceration.

The re-entry assistance is quite comprehensive. FILS provides inmates that request help, with packets that outline the process to receive food assistance, social security, veteran’s aid and other areas of aid. FILS also provides in-person advice and reentry programs for inmates at institutions. FILS also provides representation to selected inmates in Social Security hearings.

I went to several institutions to speak to inmates. I visited mostly with inmates that had been institutionalized for the majority of their adult lives. When talking to these inmates about returning to society most of them were scared. They were scared of being homeless. They were scared of not being able to survive. They were scared of committing crimes again. Their fear was rational. They were returning to an environment where they were most likely going to be homeless. Not to mention, they were returning to the worst economic situation since the Great Depression in a community that was scared of them.

In reality, these men will never be able to “start again,” not in the sense that they will be able to start from where they were prior to when they were incarcerated. But for these men and men like them, Florida Institutional Legal Services provides a helping hand to those that most people would rather never help. I am thankful for the attorneys and staff at Florida Institutional Legal Services. They provide invaluable service for so many.

Vanessa Goodwin is a 2010-11 Public Interest Law Fellow. The Public Interest Law Fellowship Program is funded by The Florida Bar Foundation to promote public interest law, and offered at the Levin College of Law by the Center for Governmental Responsibility.

The Florida Bar Foundation Public Interest Law Fellowship allowed me to work at the Juvenile Division of the offices of the public defender. The experience allowed me to enrich my passion for public interest work and it helped me gain knowledge on the area of criminal law.

After closely working with many teenagers, I came to the conclusion that the biggest problems these teens face are their families. I saw kids who did not have a place to live, kids whose parents stole their welfare benefits, kids who were physically and emotionally hurt by their parents, etc. While having trouble in your family is by no means an excuse to have a criminal record, working with these kids allowed me to better understand their emotions and behavior.

I noticed that families become a key element in the outcome of a case in the juvenile justice system. The few kids who had loving and supporting parents were the ones who obtained the best deals out of plea bargain. Good parents were active in the case, they asked questions when things were unclear, and they were patient with their teenagers. On the other hand, the kids whose parents were uncooperative had more trouble navigating the system. Unsupportive parents refused to drive the kids to court or pick the kids up at the detention center; the kids were unable to complete counseling or community service hours, which often resulted in a violation of probation. In addition, these parents pressured the kids to make a quick decision regarding their case.

As a certified legal intern in the Juvenile Division, many times, I had to ask the parents to let me speak to their kids in private because I did not want the parent’s opinion to interfere with the kid’s judgment. However, I knew the pressure was not fully alleviated.

Working for a year with the Juvenile Division allowed me to better understand how lucky I am to have people who support me. It is hard to understand people when you are not in their shoes, and it becomes easy to judge them. People sometimes think juvenile offenders are just troubled teens, failing to realize that the problem goes deeper into society.

One of my supervisors at the Public Defender’s Office volunteers in school programs designed for kids with behavioral issues. Sometimes a showing of love is all it takes to turn the lives of these kids around. After graduation I plan to be involved in community activities that can impact kids’ lives, and I encourage others to do the same.

Miredys Gonzalez is a 2010-11 Public Interest Law Fellow. The Public Interest Law Fellowship Program is funded by The Florida Bar Foundation to promote public interest law, and offered at the Levin College of Law by the Center for Governmental Responsibility.

The University of Florida Levin College of Law co-sponsored a visit from Les Payne, a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter, to UF's Pugh Hall on April 11. (Photo by Nicole Safker)

By Nicole Safker (2L)

Thirty-five years ago, a group of black students in Soweto, a large settlement outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, left their classrooms and gathered in the streets to protest yet another oppressive government directive. During this time, the apartheid government was requiring half of all school subjects be taught in Afrikaans, a language viewed as the native tongue of the oppressors.

Black students – who had already been forced out of Johannesburg and into Soweto to live in substandard conditions – finally had enough. By the end of the overwhelmingly peaceful student demonstrations, more than 500 black schoolchildren had been killed by white government soldiers.

Les Payne, a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter, caught wind of the uprising and knew he had to be there to bring home the stories of the students and their struggle.

One problem: Les was black. As a black man, he essentially had the same rights as the protesting students themselves under the apartheid regime, which were limited.

On April 11, faculty and other members of the community gathered in the Pugh Hall Auditorium on the main campus of the University of Florida to listen to Payne detail his experience covering the Soweto Uprising as an “honorary white person,” a status the government gave him so he could speak to and interview government officials and otherwise move freely about the country.

During apartheid, blacks, who made up 87 percent of the South Africa population, were given 13 percent of the worst land in South Africa. The tiny minority of white European descendants who held power enjoyed free reign and all the spoils of the country.

Payne, through favors and good luck, made it through the visa process and was allowed into South Africa. When he got there, he met resistance despite his government status being “white.”

Payne described the events of the uprising and the public outcry that resulted from his coverage of the events. White South Africans asked, “Should we be killing children simply because they don’t want to learn our language?” and “The answer from the police was yes, and they continued firing,” Payne said. Those around the world looked on in disbelief.

In addition to the stories and photos he sent home to Newsday, Payne also embarked on a project to help those in Soweto whose children and other loved ones were missing and also calculate an actual figure of how many were killed during the uprising. Since the government forbade the hospitals to keep accurate records of shootings related to the uprising – many government-inflicted bullet wounds were recorded as “abscesses” during this time – Payne and a colleague visited Sowetan morticians and later government offices to peruse death records under a pretense. Through his extensive search, he had calculated that more than 600 people were killed by the apartheid regime and published the victims’ names he found in a local newspaper.

He said his motivation for covering the events was not to win another Pulitzer Prize; but that it was most important for him to help the “families in Soweto – parents searching for their children.”

Payne is traveling around the country speaking to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the 1976 Soweto uprising. Over the course of his long career, Payne served as Newsday’s associate editor, local and national reporter and foreign correspondent and columnist. He also served as Newsday’s New York Editor and under his editorship his news staffs won every major journalism award, including six Pulitzer prices and a bevy of other honors and distinctions.

Payne’s visit to UF was co-sponsored by the Levin College of Law, the UF Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations, UF Center for African Studies, UF College of Journalism and Communications and the Center for Humanities and the Public Sphere.

Antoinette Vanterpool, left, and Jenn Allen, right, have been named the 2011 J.D. Conservation Law Fellows. Danisa M. Gonzalez, center, is this year's J.D. Minority Fellow. (Photo by Nicole Safker)

By Heather Judd
Special to FlaLaw

The University of Florida Levin College of Law’s Environmental and Land Use Law Program is proud to announce its 2011 J.D. Conservation Law Fellows and its Minority Fellowship recipient. From a strong applicant pool, Jenn Allen and Antoinette Vanterpool were selected as this year’s Conservation Law Fellows.

The Conservation Law Fellowship consists of a $2,500 grant for work in a summer placement focusing on environmental and land use projects of relevance to the Conservation Clinic. Candidates must demonstrate exceptional commitment to and achievement in environmental and land use law through both academic accomplishment and leadership in student or civic activities related to environmental or land use law.

This year’s Environmental and Land Use Law J.D. Minority Fellow is Danisa Gonzalez. Gonzalez will receive a $2,000 grant toward completion of her externship working with the Conservation Clinic in Costa Rica this summer.

Gonzalez’s summer placement and project also involves traveling to Costa Rica where she will extern with the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights, which provides support to the International Court for Human Rights located in Costa Rica.

Jenn Allen (2L) plans to use her fellowship grant to participate in the Costa Rica summer study abroad program. She intends to work closely with the Center for Environmental and Natural Resource (CEDARENA). This project will likely involve development of strategies for small-scale community associates that administer rural water to secure protection of their water sources. Allen has had other study abroad experiences, which have enriched her experience including traveling to South Africa and Tanzania during her law school career.

Allen is a dual-degree student in UF’s Masters in Sustainable Development Practice (MDP) program and hopes to combine her training in law and development policy to “discover ways and means for developing countries to protect their fragile environmental resources while addressing the needs of their populations.” After law school, she would like to build a career centered on her interests in human rights, the environment and development to help communities protect their citizens’ rights.

Antoinette Vanterpool (2L) will use her fellowship grant toward her internship with the Jamaica Environment Trust, where she will advocate for communities facing environmental issues, and assist with the Trust’s general projects whose goals consist of the protection of Jamaica’s unique and valuable natural resources.

As a native of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, Vanterpool has a continuing interest in Caribbean and international environmental policy. Her specific interests include natural resource conservation and management and sustainable energy issues. She would like to pursue a career after law school involving “work on public policy issues dealing with natural resource law as well as international and Caribbean environmental policy.”

These students, supervised by licensed attorneys, gain hands-on experience as advocates for the poor and serve non-profit and government agencies such as Florida Institutional Legal Services, Southern Legal Counsel, Three Rivers Legal Services, the State’s Guardian ad Litem program and the 8th Circuit Public Defender’s Office. Included as part of the students’ nine-month commitment are projects to promote to the law school and greater community awareness of poverty issues and public interest, and a required course in poverty law. Read each Florida Bar Foundation Public Interest Law Fellows’ article to learn more about their experience: (Photos by Nicole Safker)

• Miredys Gonzalez
• Vanessa Goodwin
• Lamar Miller
• Octavio Simoes-Ponce
• Marianna Tuninskaya

William Hamilton (JD 83) emphasized the importance of handling and sharing electronically stored information speaking April 8 at the Martin H. Levin Advocacy Center. (Photo by Nicole Safker)

By Brandon Breslow
Student Writer

As William Hamilton (JD 83) addressed members of the North Central Florida Chapter of the Federal Bar Association (FBA), he held an ordinary laptop, standard in weight and design. But to Hamilton, it was the potential equivalent of 12,500 storage boxes of discovery documents, and it needed to be handled with care.

Hamilton, a partner of Tampa’s Quarles & Brady LLP, and Adam Losey (JD 09), an associate with Orlando’s Foley and Lardner LLP, explained the tactical advantages and obligations of using and managing digital information at the chapter’s conference. The pair presented “Federal Practice in the Electronic Age: Don’t Be A Dinosaur” on April 8 in the Martin H. Levin Advocacy Center at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

“It is absolutely essential for litigators to know how to handle and share electronically stored information (ESI),” said Hamilton, who is also a UF Law adjunct professor teaching electronic discovery (e-discovery). “ESI is dramatically different from paper and litigators need new skills to get the best results for their clients while avoiding sanctions that are on the rise for mishandling ESI.”

The major difference for more experienced litigators is the volume of ESI in their cases. One printed gigabyte of ESI will fill 50 storage boxes and will cost $10,000 to review. Each important witness in an average case provides about five gigabytes of ESI that will need to be collected and reviewed. Assuming a case requires five to 10 of these witnesses, the costs of reviewing ESI can be overwhelming if it is treated the same way as paper documents. But Hamilton and Losey seek to handle ESI differently.

“The ESI advantage is that electronic files are searchable, while paper is not,” Hamilton said, “and it’s important that litigators, new and old, learn the tools to do it properly.”

If ESI is handled incorrectly, the case will slow down and costs will go up, said Losey, who became interested in e-discovery through the work of his father, Ralph Losey (JD 79).

Adam Losey was a student in Hamilton’s first e-discovery class at UF Law and has since become a recognized expert in the field. He now teaches e-discovery as an adjunct professor at Columbia University.

Losey emphasized the importance of ESI during the pre-trial discovery conference, also known as the 26(f) conference as it is governed by Rule 26 of Federal Civil Procedure.

“If you handle this conference wrong,” Losey said, “you do your client a great disservice.”

A common mistake during the 26(f) conference is miscommunication between the parties of the lawsuit in how to share, preserve and manage the ESI in the case.

“Frequently, the attorneys don’t have the language or understanding necessary to have a productive 26(f) conference,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton and Losey agree that these mistakes lead to increases in costs that would otherwise be unnecessary.

“Our end goal was to help litigators win, reduce costs and speed up litigation,” Hamilton said.

UF Law was one of the first law schools to offer a regular course in e-discovery, taught by Hamilton, so that students may study the emerging field within litigation. Ralph Losey offers an online e-discovery course for UF Law students in the summer.

“It was appropriate that we held this conference at UF Law because UF has been at the cutting edge of e-discovery for years,” Hamilton said.

Michael Cavendish (JD 98) began an international letter-writing campaign to leading newspapers urging freedom for an American English teacher held captive in North Korea after he crossed the border from China.

By Roberta O. Roberts
Student Writer

After reading about a gross violation of the human rights of an American citizen held prisoner in North Korea last year, Michael Cavendish (JD 98) knew he had to take action, even though he was more than 7,000 miles away from the crisis.

Cavendish began an international letter-writing campaign to leading newspapers urging freedom for Aijalon Gomes, an American English teacher in South Korea who was arrested when he crossed the border from China into North Korea.

Gomes, whose entry across an unfenced border was peaceable and for humanitarian purposes, had just been sentenced to eight years of hard labor and a fine of $700,000.

But that wasn’t the only thing that compelled Cavendish to work daily on an Amnesty-style human rights campaign for almost five months until Gomes was released.

“What bothered me the most was the way the North Koreans behaved,” Cavendish said. “My conscious was shocked. (His story) grabbed hold of me and didn’t let go.”

According to Cavendish, the North Korean government gave Gomes a sentence that was grossly disproportionate and cruel. They made what would have been a civil infraction in the United States (entry without a visa) into a heavily punished criminal offense.

“And at one point, the North Koreans asked the American government to pay $50 trillion for the Korean War as a further condition to Aijalon’s release,” Cavendish said. “North Korea behaved very erratically and very cruelly. For a long time it looked like his prospects were getting worse and not better.”

A few months after his sentencing, the North Korean government threatened to kill Gomes in a public press release.

“This was the regime’s worst human rights offense of all,” Cavendish said. Professor Jon Mills, director of the Center for Governmental Responsibility and UF Law dean emeritus, said that in the last couple of decades, “it is pretty clear that Americans abroad are in some greater peril because of the U.S.’s current place in the world. Americans are symbolically used by others to convey their message.”

In this case, Cavendish suggested that part of the message is religious intolerance.

“They seemed to amplify or worsen his punishment because he may have been there to spread Christianity,” Cavendish said. “They punished him merely for maintaining a religious belief.”

According to Cavendish, “North Korea is infamous for persecuting its own practicing Christian citizens.”

Cavendish said that the entry was Gomes’ way of making a “Gandhi-like statement, communicating to a very violent and cruel and oppressive regime with an act of nonviolence. (He was) a gentle evangelist, someone who just wanted to make friends and talk about living peacefully.”

But regardless of whom Gomes was or what he was trying to do, the violation of his human rights was still an issue that Cavendish wanted to address.

Cavendish started the letter-writing campaign so that opinion leaders and decision-makers would “start talking about rights as ideas and so that pressure would begin to build in the forum of public opinion.”

According to Mills, grassroots advocacy like Cavendish’s campaign is effective and important.

“Individuals have to be persistent and willing to express their views to make democracy work effectively,” Mills said. “(Petitioning our government) is one of our basic rights. It is fundamentally what democracy is based on when we want change or need our rights protected.”

Cavendish said the importance of grassroots advocacy is that it “increases the value our government assigns to each of us as individuals.”

He cites the U.S. military slogan “no one gets left behind” and suggests that American civilians should receive this same depth of governmental protection as do our soldiers, since Americans abroad are increasingly subject to detention based on geopolitics and because civilians are far less prepared than soldiers to endure detention and torture. Cavendish completed his almost five-month campaign when Gomes was escorted home by former President Jimmy Carter at the end of August.

But this wasn’t Cavendish’s first time advocating for someone’s human rights.

Although he is a commercial trial lawyer for a private firm in Jacksonville, Cavendish started doing human rights work pro bono once he became “senior enough.”

“Whether it is full-time or just as a volunteer part-time pro bono, (students can) incorporate (human rights) as part of their life as an American lawyer,” he said.

Lawyers should especially pay attention to human rights because “lawyers see the (violation of) rights more vividly than others do,” Cavendish said. “A legal education makes it hard to fool you on fundamental issues. You might end up being a family lawyer or a government lawyer and you may have forgotten most of what you learned in law school but when you’re confronted with an injustice…you’re not fooled. That legal training that you had gives you the spine — if you will — to advocate for others.”

Mills said that Cavendish’s efforts “show a real commitment to higher principles and values.”

“Frequently, lawyers are in a better position or better able to be advocates for individuals and their rights, so lawyers should take initiative, and if they see something being done wrong, they should do something about it,” Mills said. “(Cavendish) is a perfect example of using skills and ability to help other people.”