Andrew Z. Adkins III
Director of the Legal Technology Institute

• Adkins and Natalie Kelly, director of law practice management for the State Bar of Georgia, teamed up to give the 2007 ABA Tech Show attendees a how-to check list for conducting a technology assessment and developing a workable technology plan.

George R. “Bob” Dekle
Legal Skills Professor

• Delivered a lecture on the subject of Cross Examination to the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference at their Annual Fall Conference in Chattanooga, TN

Michael W. Gordon
John H. & Mary Lou Dasburg Professor of Law

• Elected to the International Academy of Comparative Law.

Robert H. Jerry, II
Dean; Levin Mabie and Levin Professor

• Agreed to serve a term on the AALS Committee on Clinical Legal Education.

Juan Perea
Cone Wagner Nugent Johnson, Hazouri and Roth Professor

• Presented his current research to the Critical Race Theory Colloquium at Northwestern University School of Law on Oct. 14.

Christopher Peterson
Associate Professor

• His draft article titled “Usury Law, Payday Loans, and Statutory Sleight of Hand: An Empirical Analysis of American Credit Pricing Limits” appeared on SSRN’s Legal Scholarship Network’s “Recent Hits” list for papers announced in the last 60 days.

Victoria Redd
Assistant Editor

• Book review appeared in the September 2007 issue of The Law and Politics Book Review on L. Hammer, A Foucauldian Approach to International Law: Descriptive Thoughts for Normative Issues.

Michael L. Seigel
Professor

• Accepted an appointment to serve on the UF Committee on a Civil, Safe and Open Environment, which is the committee formed after the student Tasering incident in September.

Christopher Slobogin
Stephen C. O’Connell Chair; Affiliate Professor of Psychiatry; Adjunct Professor, University of South Florida Mental Health Institute; Associate Director, Center for Children and Families

• Spoke on a panel focused on the Virginia Tech shootings and hosted by National Public Radio’s Joanne Silberner at Emory Law School’s Public Interest Conference on Oct. 13.
• Spoke on a panel entitled “Speaking for the Unforgivable: Death Penalty Mitigation Testmony” at the American Association of Psychiatry and Law meeting in Miami on Oct. 19.

UF Law Faculty in the News

Juan Perea
Cone Wagner Nugent Johnson, Hazouri and Roth Professor

• Univision, October 2007. Interviewed on the news show “Aqui y Ahora” regarding a Texas town that made Spanish its official language. This was his first interview conducted entirely in Spanish.

Michael Seigel
Professor

• St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 13. Extensively quoted throughout an article discussing federal prosecutors uphill battle in filing criminal civil rights violation charges against boot camp employees in Panama City for the death of a 14-year-old boy. Seigel said, prosecutors would have to prove that the boot camp employees knew what they were doing and deliberately acted in a manner that caused 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson’s death. “It’s exceedingly rare that the federal government would come in after an acquittal and bring charges,” Seigel said. “They have the power to do so. It’s not seen as double jeopardy. It’s often seen as unfair and overbearing.”
• St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 13. In a separate article discussing the verdict, Seigel was referred to when discussing the initial statement immediately issued by the U.S. Department of Justice. Seigel said government officials likely used the statement as a measure to calm the community.

The study co-authored by Christopher L. Peterson, an associate professor at UF’s Levin College of Law, and Steven M. Graves, an assistant professor of geography at California State University, surveyed more than 13,000 zip codes and found that payday loan companies clustered in areas near military bases.

The findings were cited in a report by the Pentagon, and last month Peterson testified before the Senate Banking Committee. On Sept. 29 Congress agreed to legislation prohibiting lenders from imposing an interest rate of more than 36 percent on loans to members of the armed forces or their dependants.

“It’s just fantastic,” Peterson said. “It’s probably the most consumer-friendly legislation Congress has passed in a generation.” Congress may have been moved, he said, by the irony of claiming to support the troops while at the same time allowing them to be preyed upon by the predatory lending practices of the payday loan companies. Payday loans are high-interest loans intended to tide the borrower over to his next paycheck. In a typical payday loan, a lender might give a borrower $100 cash in exchange for a post-dated check for $115. When the loan comes due, typically two weeks later, the lender cashes the check, recouping his $100 plus a $15 “lender’s fee.”

If the borrower doesn’t have enough money in the bank when the loan is due, he can always refinance—by borrowing more money on the same terms. Known as a “rollover,” this practice can quickly turn a small loan into a sizable financial obligation. Charges for payday loans vary, but a typical lender will charge around $17 or $18 for a two-week loan of $100.That’s roughly equivalent to an annual interest rate of 450 percent.

Peterson hopes the limits placed on loans to military families can someday be made on loans to civilians as well.

“These kinds of loans are being made to people from all walks of life,” Peterson said. “If it’s good for military sevice members it ought to be good for everybody else, too. Nevertheless, I think this is a step in the right direction and something to build upon.”

Peterson has been studying predatory lending for years, and is the author of Taming the Sharks: Towards a Cure for the High Cost Credit Market, which received the American College of Consumer Financial Services Attorneys’ Best Book of the Year Award for 2004.

Peterson and Graves mapped payday loan locations in 20 states, including 109 military bases, and found that ZIP codes near military bases consistently had higher numbers of payday lenders than nonmilitary ZIP codes of similar population and demographic makeup.

Military personnel make good targets for the payday loan industry, Peterson said. Junior enlisted personnel often have low salaries and little experience managing money. Because the military frowns on nonpayment of debt—delinquent soldiers can face demotion, loss of security clearances, and even discharge—lenders can be confident they will be repaid. 

Peterson believes the research he and Graves did may have influenced some leaders at the Pentagon, which cited the study in a ground breaking press release and in talking points for its legislative affairs personnel. 

“I got into this business thinking I wanted to make a difference, and then I realized that’s completely a pipe dream,” Peterson said. “But I think we actually made a difference on this one. We kind of helped this happen,”