This year extended hours until 2 a.m. began yesterday. On Sunday, the LIC will close at 4 a.m. and maintain that schedule through Sunday, Dec. 11. From Monday, Dec. 12, through Thursday, Dec. 15, the LIC will close at 2 a.m.

This is the second semester of a pilot test of later closing times during exams. The LIC will be keeping detailed statistics of library use during this period to determine whether demand is high enough to maintain the 4 a.m. closing time. The LIC welcomes your feedback about library hours, so please to take a short survey and provide your comments.

Here are the hours:

Nov. 27 – Dec. 3, 7:30 a.m. – 2 a.m.; Dec. 4 – Dec. 11, 7:30 a.m. – 4 a.m.; Dec. 12 – Dec. 15, 7:30 a.m. – 2 a.m.; Dec. 16, 7:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Dec. 17 – Dec. 18, CLOSED.

• Vice President of External Affairs: Ryan Gilbert
• Vice President of Internal Affairs: Dylan Shea
• Secretary: Robert O’Linn
• Chair of Historical Society: Kim Tolland
• Vice-Chair of Historical Society: Amanda Brooks
• Intramural Competition Co-Chair: Joseph Somake
• Intramural Competition Co-Chair: Kelsey Veitengruber
• Vice-Chair for Intermural Competitions: Amy Podolsky
• Chair of Special Events: Danielle Grundt
• Vice-Chair of Special Events: Amy Limontes
• Chair of Education and Training: Ryan Hopper.

In January, they will join current executive board members Leigh Anne Siddle, president, Monica Haddad, chair for intramural competitions, and Alex Landback, chair for public relations. For the first time, UF will will compete in January at the Andrews Kurth Moot Court National Championship, where the top 16 teams in the nation are invited to compete.

In February, the Florida Supreme Court will judge the 28th Annual Raymer F. Maguire Appellate Advocacy Competition, sponsored by Holland & Knight, LLP.

The Maguire Competition features six talented members of the team who will compete in the American Bar Association’s National Appellate Advocacy Competition in March. During the Spring Semester, the Florida Moot Court Team invites 1Ls to attend information sessions and tabling, and encourages everyone to learn more about the team.

For more information about 1L tryouts, contact Kelsey Veitengruber or Joseph Somake.

• Assistant Editor-in-Chief: Will Stein
• Assistant Managing Editor: Lauren Woodruff
• Assistant Student Works Editor: Nicole Critelli
• Assistant Articles Editors: Samantha Aylward, Sammi Culp, Phil Rossman-Reich and Tyler Hudson
• Assistant Research Editors: Allison Symulevich, Christine Bustamante, Tamar Soroker and Kelsey Veitengruber
• Notes Chair: Alexandra Michelini; Fundraising & Alumni Chair: Justin York
• Bylaws Chair: Christine Bustamante
• Productions Chair: Anitra Raiford; Community Affairs Chair: Kara Carnley Murhee
• Policy Chair: Suzanne Tzuanos

Competitively selected by the state Sea Grant Directors, then subjected to a nationally competitive selection process, Knauss fellows are placed in prominent policy relevant positions in Washington, D.C., to gain experience in marine and coastal policy.

McDermott will serve in the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. McDermott is the third Knauss fellow selected from the UF Law ELULP since 2005.

He succeeds Heather Halter and Melanie King, both of whom now work at NOAA.

Christie focuses on assisting students seeking postgraduate judicial clerkships and provides counseling to students interested in government or public interest careers. She oversees the pro bono, public interest, and community service programs. She also serves as the liaison with all diversity-based student groups.

Five scholars visited Gainesville to honor UF Law Professor Nancy Dowd's book The Man Question in a workshop Nov. 18.

Toward the end of her keynote address, a man stood in the back of the crowd and asked internationally renowned feminism legal theorist and family law expert Martha Fineman if she thought her own views were just too good to be true.

Before a crowd of about 60 at the Nov. 18 event that brought five legal scholars from across the country to Gainesville to honor UF Law professor Nancy Dowd’s book The Man Question, a man asked Fineman, the founder and director of the Feminism Legal Theory Project, if her views on masculinities and manhood were nothing more than wishfully “utopian.”

And through a near 40-minute discussion on the legal ramifications of defining gender only on the rigid binary system of man and woman and her hopes of changing that system, Fineman would argue that she certainly hoped not.

Fineman’s opening address set the stage for the rest of the day’s workshop, “Asking ‘The Man Question,’” where legal scholars from Tennessee to Las Vegas discussed the legal obstacles in place when asking the question of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman. The gender-bending question tangles the legal web in areas ranging from sexual harassment suits and defining what the “reasonable victim” standard is, it arises in the forceful male-only registration in the Selective Service and it stretches deep into the American household when fathers are forced into defining what roles are inherent in fatherhood vs. motherhood.

“For one thing, law relies on categories that are entrenched,” Fineman said.

The utopian solution? Ending the binary classification of man vs. woman that plagues our legal systems and entering into an “everybody-is-vulnerable,” multiplicity-of-identities legal structure in which the law books don’t classify men solely as men or women solely as women. The law must include shared experiences, backgrounds and the knowledge that people of both genders are inherently different, Fineman said.

Dowd agreed.

“It’s so easy to say, ‘Men behave this way, this happened because men are like that.’ [But] radical egalitarianism is our goal,” she said.

And in a day’s worth of speeches and discussions of how we’ve created a man’s world that invoked the mention of Ice Cube, Joe Paterno and a weeping Tim Tebow, it was evident to the audience that trying to figure out how to redefine how our legal society looks at men and women would be difficult.

Utopian, almost.

“Thinking about this as a part of cultural change is critical,” Dowd said.

And Ann McGinley, William S. Boyd professor of law at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, would go so far as to say the law’s current gender dichotomy was not only harmful but heteronormative and reflective of an anti-gay bias.

“The law should not pressure men to prove masculinity,” McGinley said. “The law should not reinforce harmful gender norms.”

Touching on Dowd’s criticism on the way the juvenile justice system profoundly impacts boys, particularly black boys, professor Frank Cooper from Suffolk University, had a harsh analysis of the law’s gendered binary system.

“The system is profoundly gendered,” Cooper said of the nation’s justice system. “In addition to it being gendered, it’s raced.”

Through four speakers praising the work of UF Law’s Nancy Dowd and UF Law’s Center on Children and Families, which sponsored the workshop, Dowd and the panel of distinguished speakers asked the audience to leave with one question: If we are all not created equally, how can we apply the law to benefit us all?

Fineman’s answer, while less than utopian, provides the only imperfect answer.

“We must engage the law [as is] because we cannot stand outside of it.”

The meeting, which has been held each semester since fall 2009, is intended to allow UF Law administrators and students to have direct communication while addressing student concerns, raising new questions and fostering a healthy and productive discussion about how to improve the law school.

The panel consisted of Dean Robert Jerry, Associate Dean for Student Affairs Rachel Inman, Associate Dean for Administrative and Fiscal Affairs Debra Staats and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Alyson Flournoy.

Jerry began the meeting by addressing the changing world of legal education and looking at what UF Law is doing to keep up with those changes.

“We have, for about two years now, been working on curriculum reforms here at the law school and in the fall of ’12, the 1Ls will have some changes to the curriculum,” Jerry said.

He pointed out that UF Law has already been a leader in legal skills with the mandatory legal drafting class for second-year students.

He also discussed the difficult job market and pointed out that the Center for Career Development has a new assistant dean — Pascale Bishop — and the staff and program have been completely revamped.

“We are working hard to try to ramp up our support for you in that job search and I hope you will take advantage of the services we offer,” Jerry said.

Next, Inman relayed the results of a survey regarding new food options in the cafeteria. She said 440 students and 99 faculty and staff members participated in the Survey Monkey survey.

The results showed that 86.8 percent of participating students chose Wednesday as their top day to have an alternate food option available at the law school; the second choice was Tuesday. For faculty and staff, the top choice was Tuesday and the second choice was Monday. The top pick by students for food was Pollo Tropical — followed by Subway — while faculty and staff chose Chili’s, also followed by Subway.

“When you return the week of Jan. 7, as the survey mentioned, our goal is to have an online ordering process,” Inman said. “You can order and pay online … that day, and then the food will be delivered at a specific time and you will come to a particular place and pick it up.”

Inman said the new system will be tried out at the beginning of the semester, then send out another survey to see how it can be improved or refined. All current food options in the cafeteria will still be available.

Staats and Flournoy addressed facilities and curriculum questions, respectively.

Staats said the administration is looking into adding a card-swipe option to the second-floor entrance to Bruton-Geer Hall since it is used more frequently by students now that the lockers are there. The process has been cost-prohibitive in the past because the door is a non-standard size and the glass would have to be replaced, but she will look into it again.

She said another popular question brought up by students is whether they could get an additional electric outlet in the cubby desks in the library. Staats said it is not possible because the building is “already maxed out as far as the amount of electricity we have going in it.”

In response to curricular questions, Flournoy said the strategic planning committee is “just beginning to look at skills in the upper level.” She also said the school’s grading curve policy will be clarified on the website in the future.

Finally, Jerry addressed distracting noise and overcrowding in the library.

“The bottom line is we absolutely want you to have a comfortable space to do your studies all the time the library is available and we’re trying to make sure it’s available at times when you need it,” he said.

UF Law students and Elizabeth Outler, associate director of the Legal Information Center, also got involved in the conversation.

Several students complained that much of the noise and overcrowding in the library is a result of undergraduate students who come to the law library to study.

Jerry said access to the law library cannot be restricted, but measures were discussed on how to minimize distractions and overcrowding.

The meeting closed with a round of questions from students. Topics addressed included the possibility of extending the reading period at the end of the semester, scheduling conflicts in class offerings and criteria for admitting transfer students.

Senior Judge William Terrell Hodges (JD 58) of the United States District Court, Middle District of Florida answered questions from law students Nov. 15 and 16 as the newest Peter T. Fay Jurist-in-Residence. (Photo by Nicole Safker)

Students and faculty of the University of Florida Levin College of Law welcomed Senior Judge William Terrell Hodges (JD 58) of the United States District Court, Middle District of Florida, as the newest Peter T. Fay Jurist-in-Residence.

Hodges visited the UF Law campus Nov. 15 and 16 as part of the Jurist-in-Residence program, which brings judges to speak with students and faculty about judicial clerkships, trial advocacy, legal careers and other important issues.

“I came here to answer the students’ questions,” Hodges said, “so that I can help them as they prepare to enter the practice of law.”

Hodges was appointed to preside in the Middle District of Florida by Richard Nixon in 1971. He served as chief judge from 1982 to 1989 and has maintained senior status since 1999. Prior to his appointment, he worked as a private practice attorney in Tampa.

“Judge Hodges was an outstanding candidate for our Peter T. Fay Jurist-in-Residence program,” said Senior Legal Skills Professor Jennifer Zedalis, who chairs the Jurist-in-Residence program.” He has served on the federal bench for more than 40 years, and he was able to give our students a sense of the profession that very few could convey as thoughtfully and candidly.”

Hodges met with faculty and students from the UF Law clinics, Florida Law Review and several other student organizations. A luncheon was held through the Career Development Center for students interested in judicial clerkships.

“The law clerks that I’ve hired from UF Law have always displayed an ability to do their work equally or better than those from other institutions,” Hodges said. “I also know that UF Law has a solid reputation with the judges from the U.S. Courts of Appeals as far as the quality of their graduates who become clerks.”

He was also a guest lecturer in law classes for Professors Rush and Fenster, where he discussed federal courts and statutory interpretation.

The UF Law Trial Team and Florida Moot Court Team had the opportunity to meet with Hodges to discuss trial advocacy in the federal courts.

“I stress that lawyers be themselves,” Hodges said. “Don’t try to imitate other advocates or pick up some sort of gimmickry.”