“Blood-alcohol tests under fire in DUI cases” (March 11, 2012, Orlando Sentinel)

An Orlando woman suffered mental and physical injuries after her vehicle was struck by a woman charged with drunk driving. Defense attorneys are attempting to have the driver’s blood alcohol test dismissed. Dekle commented on the issue.

From the article:
Emboldened by the success they’ve found in quashing breath-test results, defense attorneys may be looking to employ the challenges in more cases, said longtime prosecutor Bob Dekle of the University of Florida School of Law.

“A defense attorney is going to attack the evidence even if it came down from Mount Sinai on two tablets written by the hand of God,” Dekle said. “That is what they do.”

But if there is a trend of increasing success for defense attorneys, he said it’s likely because DUI prosecutors are among the least-experienced in the State Attorney’s Office.

“They quite frequently confront the big guns: the most experienced, highly prestigious defense attorneys,” he said.

Lea Johnston
Assistant Professor of Law

Johnston’s article “Theorizing Mental Health Courts” was published by the Washington University Law Review. Johnston also presented her current work in progress, titled “Vulnerability and Desert: A Theory of Sentencing the Mentally Ill” to faculty at the University of Georgia.

Shani King
Co-Director, Center on Children and Families; Associate Professor of Law

Professors Ruiz and King presented “Essential Ethics for Advocates: Avoiding the Unauthorized Practice of Law” at The Annual COPAA (Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates) in Miami on March 10.

Lyrissa Lidsky
Stephen C. O’Connell Chair & Professor of Law

“Cincinnati Engineer Sued for Tweet: Do You Fact Check your Tweets?” (March 8, 2012, The Take Away)

In this radio interview, Lidsky was part of a conversation about a Cincinnati man who was sued for making false statements via Twitter about taxpayer money being used for a new municipal project. The lawsuit was dropped when it was ruled the man wasn’t lying. Lidsky said the question here is whether the government could punish someone whose lies aren’t directly harming an individual.

Elizabeth A. Rowe
Professor of Law; Director, Program in Intellectual Property Law

On Feb. 28 Rowe delivered a lecture on the “Basic Principles of Patent Law” to United Nations diplomats at the World Intellectual Property Organization in New York.

Daniel Sokol
Associate Professor of Law

“Apple’s market clout likely to draw more scrutiny” (March 12, 2012, Associated Press)

The U.S. Justice Department is considering filing a lawsuit against Apple based on evidence of the company working with five publishing companies in a scheme to raise the price of electronic books. Sokol commented on why Apple might not have had as much scrutiny in the past as companies such as Microsoft and Google.

From the article:
Apple may simply behave better than some of its rivals, or it may be doing business in areas that are so new that government regulators are still learning how those nascent markets function, says D. Daniel Sokol, an associate law professor who focuses on antitrust issues at the University of Florida.

“To attract antitrust attention, you have to be more than just big. You have to be big and bad,” Sokol says. “It was only 2007 when Apple released the iPhone, and only 2010 when it released the iPad. The company hasn’t had that long to be bad yet, if it is indeed bad.”

Shana Kalil volunteered with Sar-El at an Israel Defense Force base near the Lebanese border, where she painted tanks and other army vehicles, like the ones pictured here.

By Shana Kalil (3L)

As a “Double Gator,” I have seen everything Gainesville has to offer. Fortunately, the Levin College of Law offers study abroad opportunities for its students. When I heard about these programs, I jumped at the chance to explore the world while continuing my legal education. I enrolled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for my 2L Summer semester and Tel Aviv University for my 3L Fall semester.

I split my 2L Summer so that I was able to work for the first half and then depart early to start my study abroad program. In the beginning of August, I started a summer session at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for Ulpan (an intensive Hebrew course). Levin College of Law recognizes up to 6 foreign language credits toward your law degree if you attain a grade of B+ or higher. The course was one month long, 5 to 6 hours a day, and 5 to 6 days a week. It was incredibly difficult, but also very effective. I was able to attain enough proficiency to travel, shop, and converse with the locals in their native language. While English is spoken by the majority of Israelis, they appreciate the effort of foreigners in learning Hebrew. While at Hebrew University, I lived in the dormitories with 80 other foreigners and our Israeli madrichim (guides) who helped us learn the inner workings of the city. We bought fresh produce and baked goods in the bustling market called Mahane Yehuda Shuk. The madrichim also helped us to navigate the maze of the Old City. Every week I visited the Muslim Quarter to get the best hummus in the city, and then passed into the Jewish Quarter to see the Western Wall. On Friday nights, groups gathered at the Western Wall to sing, pray, and visit with friends while welcoming in the Sabbath.

Due to Israel’s small size and location, it is easy and relatively inexpensive to travel within the country and to Africa and Europe. I traveled from the north in the Golan Heights to the southernmost beach town of Eilat, and saw everything in between. From Eilat, I crossed over into Jordan and visited the ancient city of Petra, which was made famous by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and voted one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. I also traveled to Barcelona, Spain where I saw the architecture of Gaudi, enjoyed daily paella, and watched the Barcelona soccer (or futbol) matches.

Due to the heavy concentration of Jewish Holidays in September and October, my semester at Tel Aviv University did not begin until November. Just before the start of classes, the school organized an orientation where we met the other exchange students as well as our Tel Aviv “buddies.” TAU pairs each exchange student with an Israeli law student. The “buddy” will help integrate the exchange student into Israeli society and school life, and will even help in the somewhat difficult search for housing. While many students live in the dormitories of TAU at Ramat Aviv, it is more popular to live downtown near the beach, night life, and markets. While at TAU, I took classes in English that involved American law, international law, and comparative law. The Levin College of Law records study abroad and foreign language courses on your transcript as pass/fail.

The time I spent on my study abroad program in Israel was amazing. I truly made life-long friends and lived an adventure.

Sara Phillips (3L) shows what she can do with her prosthetic running leg at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park late October. She ran her first race with the leg Oct. 8 in the GreenLaw annual Eco-Run 5K. (Photo by Melissa Montilla)

A story featuring a University of Florida Levin College of Law student is now award-winning. UF journalism student Jared Misner won the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Region Three Mark of Excellence Award for “Running through life.”

“Running through life” tells the story of Sara Phillips (3L) and her struggles after losing a leg. It was printed in FlaLaw Online in October 2011.

“She is an inspiration,” Misner said of Phillips. He worked with Phillips over the course of a few days to compose the article, even following Phillips to the GreenLaw annual Eco-Run 5K.

Misner submitted the story to the annual competition because of its subject matter and inspirational qualities.

“The article spoke most to me,” said Misner about choosing Phillips’ story over other articles he wrote throughout 2011.

The Mark of Excellence Award is given by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) to recognize the best student journalism in the country. Awards are given in various categories, from sports photography to radio news reporting.

“Obviously, (I am) very humbled to be recognized for the work that I do,” Misner said. Last year, SPJ awarded Misner regional first place for editorial writing.

This year, winners from the region will receive their awards during the Mark of Excellence Luncheon held in Gainesville on March 23. The first-place winners will go on to compete nationally.

Although Misner will not be attending the luncheon, he said the award and recognition is just a small part of the journalism package.

“Having the ability to tell stories for a living is an honor,” said Misner.

Click here to read the story.

Florida Moot Court Team members Amanda Finley (3L), Bob O’Linn (2L) and Nick Andrews (2L) traveled to the 20th Annual Honorable Conrad B. Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition hosted by St. John’s University in New York March 10-12.

Duberstein is the largest one-site Moot Court competition in the nation, with well over 50 teams from across the country competing. Finley, O’Linn, and Andrews survived the gauntlet with an impressive display of advocacy and cruised into the semifinal round, as one of the top four teams, where they eventually fell short against the eventual champions from UT-Austin, finishing in a tie for third overall. In addition to their remarkable run, the trio took home the coveted Best Brief Award for the competition, which is the first for the Florida Moot Court team since Fall 2010.

This honor was not without merit, as Finley, O’Linn, and Andrews worked tirelessly on the brief, fine-tuning it to near perfection. For Finley, this will be a tremendous warm-up as she will be competing with her fellow classmates next month at the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot competition in Vienna, Austria. Meanwhile, O’Linn and Andrews are well-prepared to carry the mantle for the Florida Moot Court Team into 2012-2013.

While the team has demonstrated a promising growth in written advocacy, the team continued its dominance at oral advocacy at the American Bar Association’s National Appellate Advocacy Competition last month at the Atlanta Regional. There, the Florida Moot Court Team sent two teams of competitors: Leigh Anne Siddle (3L), Dan Lazaro (3L), and Jordan Peterson (3L) consisted of one team, while Andrew Labbe (3L), Dylan Shea (2L), and Kelsey Veitengruber (2L) were the second team. Each survived to the Quarterfinal round of the Regional. From there, the team of Labbe, Shea, and Veitengruber advanced to the Regional Final.

As expected, they did not leave empty-handed, as Dylan Shea brought home the Best Oralist award for the Regional, and Labbe was named Runner-up to Shea. These accomplishments were not surprising, as both Labbe and Shea consistently finished with the top scores in every round. This success wasn’t just limited to Shea and Labbe, as each of the competitors received high scores in each of the rounds.

For the team of Siddle, Lazaro, and Peterson, they could not overcome an unlucky matchup with the team that ultimately received the Best Brief award. Meanwhile Labbe, Shea, and Veitengruber found themselves on the wrong side of a tie-breaking vote in the final round.

Nevertheless, the Florida Moot Court Team is well positioned to make another run at a Top 16 ranking nationally with several competitions left in a variety of subjects before the year is over. This past weekend, the Florida Moot Court Team sent two teams to competitions in New York City (Entertainment Law) and Boston (Intellectual Property). Soon, the team will travel to competitions focusing on Evidence, Criminal, and Constitutional Law. For 1Ls who are interested in litigation or possess an insatiable competitive-streak, the Florida Moot Court Team will be holding informational and tabling sessions in the near future regarding tryouts this summer and will soon have a TWEN page with more details.

The Judge John J. Parker Distinguished Professor of Law will present a lecture titled, “Slavery, Secession and the Constitution,” at the ninth annual UF Levin College of Law Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations Spring Lecture Wednesday, March 21, at noon at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, Room 345. The lecture is free and open to the public.

“While everyone understands that slavery was at the center of the South’s secession, what I’m interested in is how southern politicians, lawyers and professors used constitutional ideas – like the Constitution’s protection of slavery – to argue for secession,” Brophy said.

Brophy said while today we see the Constitution as a guarantee of equal rights, before the Civil War, southerners used the same document to protect slavery, even at the cost of a united nation. This presentation is the culmination of years of work analyzing southern academics and their defense of slavery, and “how ideas about slavery, history and economy were used to gin up support for a proslavery interpretation of the Constitution and separate Confederate nation.”

Brophy is the author of Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Oxford University Press, 2002) and Reparations Pro and Con (Oxford University Press, 2006), and is the co-author of Integrating Spaces: Property Law and Race (Aspen, 2011). He is completing a study of jurisprudence in the old South tentatively titled University, Court, and Slave and is starting a study of the idea of equality among African American intellectuals in the early twentieth century and the road to Brown, tentatively titled Reading the Great Constitutional Dream Book.

The University of Florida Levin College of Law Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations is committed to fostering communities of dialogue on race. The center creates and supports programs designed to enhance race-related curriculum development for faculty, staff and students in collegiate and professional schools. Of the five U.S. law schools with race centers, the CSRRR is uniquely focused on curriculum development.

Martin H. Redish, the Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy at Northwestern University School of Law, will present the lecture “Judicial Review, Constitutional Interpretation, and the Democratic Dilemma: Proposing a ‘Controlled Activism’ Alternative” Friday March 23, at 10:30 a.m. in UF Law’s Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom, HOL 180. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Redish was recently listed in a study conducted by William S. Hein & Company as the sixteenth most cited legal scholar of all time. He has also been consistently recognized by the Institute for Scientific Information for being among the most highly cited researchers worldwide.

Redish has also appeared as an expert witness before numerous congressional committees. In addition, he has made frequent appearances in the national media, including the Today Show, ABC and NBC National News, CNN, Court TV, CSPAN and National Public Radio.

The Florida Law Review Dunwody Distinguished Lecture in Law series was established by the U.S. Sugar Corporation and the law firms of Dunwody, White, & Landon, P.A. and Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwody & Cole in honor of Elliot and Atwood Dunwody. The honorees were brothers who dedicated their lives to the legal profession and who set a standard of excellence for The Florida Bar. As graduates of the University of Florida College of Law, they labored long, continuously and quietly to better the social and economic conditions in Florida.

The series is intended to perpetuate the example set by the Dunwody brothers by providing a forum for renowned legal scholars to present novel and challenging ideas.

The event is CLE accredited and will be available via live webcast atwww.floridalawreview.com.

The University of Florida Levin College of Law’s Tax Program continues to rank first among public law schools and second overall, its Environmental and Land Use Law Program rose four places to fifth among publics/ninth overall, and its Dispute Resolution Program rose three places to seventh among publics/16th overall in U.S. News & World Report rankings released today. UF’s law school is in the top 20 (10 percent) in three of the nine specialty program rankings.

The publication’s annual rankings of the nation’s graduate schools place UF’s law school 25th among public schools and 48th out of 200 accredited law schools nationwide.

“While we are pleased to remain ranked in the top quarter of the nation’s law schools, particularly as we deal with continuing budget challenges, we are certain UF Law would have ranked considerably higher if U.S. News had not changed how it ranks schools,” said UF Law Dean Robert Jerry. “The method for ranking shifted last year to counting graduates who immediately enroll in post-J.D. programs like LL.M. programs as unemployed. This hurts us more than most other institutions due to the much larger number of UF Law students — 10.7 percent in this class — who continue their study in a graduate program such as our highly regarded tax LL.M.”

“This highlights how frustrating rankings can be, since, as I have said every year, they are rarely accurate measures of institutional quality,” said Jerry. He added that a better indication of institutional strength in U.S. News rankings is reputation, where UF Law continues to be highly rated in the top 20th percentile or better – 15th among publics and 35th overall in peer assessment, and 17th among publics and 38th overall in lawyer/judge assessment. This coupled with comparatively low tuition makes the Levin College of Law widely regarded as one of the nation’s best values in legal education. (A chart ranking law schools by reputation was posted on the blog Taxprof at http:/taxprof.typepad.com/.)

“The college’s reputation is one reason UF Law has 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 our outstanding faculty’s scholarship and reputation for this distinction.”

UF’s Law Environmental and Land Use Law (ELUL) and Dispute Resolution programs have been steadily rising in the annual specialty area rankings.

ELUL Program Director Mary Jane Angelo said, “We are proud that UF’s Environmental and Land Use Law Program is ranked 5th among all public and 9th among all law school environmental programs. The program’s ranking has been steadily rising in recent years and our current ranking reflects the depth and breadth of our program, as well as the accomplishments and strong reputation of our faculty and students.”

The University of Florida’s Levin College of Law played an active role in the development of alternative dispute resolution in the state, and its Institute for Dispute Resolution (IDR) was the first of its kind established at a law school in Florida, as a result of state legislators enacting one of the first laws in the country giving judges broad authority to order mediation in all types of civil lawsuits, according to IDR Director Robin Davis.

“We monitor the school’s progress closely. We know that we have earned our excellent reputation in very real, measurable ways and we are proud that our graduates continue to lead the profession,” Jerry said, citing the college’s long history of producing national leaders, including 2010-11 ABA President Stephen Zack and the majority of Florida Bar presidents. The prominence of our alumni in the federal and state judiciaries also speaks loudly about our quality.”

UF Law was ranked fourth among public law schools in 2011 (eighth overall) in the number of its graduates serving as federal district and circuit court judges; more than 250 graduates serve as state appellate and trial judges in Florida, and many serve in those roles in other states as well.

“That a large number of law schools hire our graduates as law professors is also a sign of the college’s strength,” said Jerry. A study published in the August 2011 Journal of Legal Education ranked UF Law in the top 33 (17 percent) of law schools nationwide, and as high as 22nd (11 percent) in one calculation, for placement in the professoriate in legal education.

“It is remarkable that despite continuing budget cuts, the Levin College of Law has not only managed to sustain its top tax ranking and remain a top 50 law school, it is also attracting national attention for its strength in environmental and land use law and dispute resolution.”

“We’ve had to manage our money very carefully,” said Jerry. “But we’ve been able to continue to move forward when other schools have not thanks to the generosity and foresight of our graduates and their families as well as others who believe in the value of what we do here. When we dedicate the Martin H. Levin Advocacy Center March 30, we will be wrapping up a decade of transformation for our law school these supporters have made possible.”