“Golden Hills seeking bankruptcy protection” (Feb. 28, 2012, Ocala Star-Banner)

With the Golden Hills Golf and Turf Club filing for bankruptcy in February, this article looks at the causes and implications of the filing. Davis offered insight into what it means for a business to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

From the article:
Chapter 11 bankruptcy isn’t the end for Golden Hills. They can still conduct business, but still owe some of their creditors money.

“Chapter 11 is known as business reorganization,” said Jeffrey Davis, a law professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. “The goal is to arrive at a plan that over time pays the secured creditors and the unsecured creditors under the terms.”

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

Lidsky’s article “Incendiary Speech and Social Media,” was just published in Texas Tech Law Review.

Lidsky traveled to Florida Coastal School of Law on March 2 to give a presentation at the Law Review’s Cyber Law Symposium.

Tom C.W. Lin
Assistant Professor of Law

Lin recently published “The Corporate Governance of Iconic Executives” in 87 Notre Dame L. Rev. 351 (2011).

Joseph Little
Professor Emeritus

“KEL law firm sues Better Business Bureau over rating system dispute” (Feb. 21, 2012,Orlando Sentinel)

KEL law firm in Orlando is suing the Better Business Bureau after the organization gave the law firm a rating of “F” because of client complaints. The law firm is claiming the bureau’s rating system is biased and flawed. Little stated that as long as the Better Business Bureau can back up its rating system and claims, its conclusions about businesses are protected speech.

From the article:
Still, a BBB agency can’t just publish information without proper due diligence to verify it, said Joseph W. Little, a professor emeritus at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. The burden would be on KEL to prove reckless negligence by the BBB, he said.

“The BBB has common law right to express fair comment and honest opinion based on true facts,” Little said. “If it does that, then it is protected speech and opinion, even though it is not the opinion the law firm would want them to have.”

“House passes random drug testing bill” (March 2, 2012, Associated Press)

The article addresses questions raised after the Florida House passed a bill that would allow state employees to submit to random drug tests. Little discussed the constitutionality if the bill were to become a law.

From the article:
For the plan to be constitutional, the state’s interest in testing employees for drugs must outweigh the employees’ right to privacy, said Joseph Little, a professor emeritus of constitutional law at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law.

“There has to be something special about the employment, though, like law enforcement officers or those with a security clearance,” Little said. “But if there’s no special need, you probably can’t do it.”

Jon Mills
Dean Emeritus; Director, Center for Governmental Responsibility

“Justices seek input on how to handle new redistricting rules” (Feb. 29, 2012, The Miami Herald)

The Florida Supreme Court questioned lawyers representing Democrats and Republicans about how to interpret Florida’s new redistricting rules last month. Mills was on-hand to represent the Democrats and was quoted in the article.

From the article:
“You are the ultimate authority,” said Jon Mills, a University of Florida law professor and former House speaker arguing for the Florida Democratic Party. The Legislature’s interpretation “may be interesting but your interpretation is binding.”

Leonard Riskin
Chesterfield Smith Professor of Law

During the fall semester of 2011, Riskin was a visiting professor at Northwestern University School of Law. While there, he received a Dean’s Teaching Award for 2011-2012 (awarded by the dean, based on student evaluations).

In October, he gave two plenary presentations on “Managing and Connecting Inner and Outer Conflict: Integration of IFS and Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice,” at the international Conference of the Center for Self-Leadership in Boston and the Pre-Conference Workshop.

He also moderated a panel presentation on The Chicago Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program, sponsored by the Northwestern Law Hispanic Student’s Association and the John Marshall Law School Mediation Program.

Daniel Sokol
Associate Professor of Law

Sokol presented his early work “A Transaction Cost Economics Explanation of Law and Entrepreneurship Vertical Contracting” at IU Bloomington Mauer School of Law.

Jeff Wade
Director of Environmental Division, Center for Governmental Responsibility

On Feb. 17-18, Wade participated in a conference as part of the run-up to the UN Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, scheduled for June of this year. The conference, titled “Contribution of International Environmental Law to Sustainable Development: Global and National Perspectives,” was held at the University of Delhi Faculty of Law in New Delhi, India. Wade presented a paper, “Coastal Development in an Unstable Climate: Precaution, Adaptation and Resilience,” and moderated a panel on marine pollution and coastal regulation.

Michael Allan Wolf
Richard E. Nelson Chair in Local Government Law

Wolf made a presentation on judicial takings with Bill Treanor (Georgetown) at the Third Annual Meeting of the Association for Law, Property and Society, at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., on March 2.

Presented “Promoting Agricultural Production, Healthy Communities and Biodiversity through Ecoagriculture” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Fletcher Baldwin

Presented a paper titled, “The rule of law: an essential component of the financial war against organized crime and terrorism in the Americas, Uruguay round,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Commented on the panel, “Financial Crime & Street Crime,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Elizabeth Dale

Commented on the panel, “The Intersection of Law & Society with Public Labor and Employment Law,” and she presented a paper at a panel (which she organized), “Deploying History: Uses of the Past in Constitutional Discourse, Comparative Studies,” at the Law and Society Association conference in Chicago in May.

Nancy Dowd

Dowd made presentations on masculinities and feminist theory at two conferences in March at Harvard Law School and the Center for Applied Feminism at the University of Baltimore Law School.

Joan Flocks

Co-authored a paper titled, “The Role of Employers and Supervisors in Promoting Pesticide Safety Behavior among Florida Farmworkers,” which was published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 53(8):814-824, 2010. Flocks was also one of six invited reviewers nationwide for a report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, “Assessing the Effects of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill on Human Health” which came out of a June 2010 meeting and is currently available for free in prepublication at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12949.

Commented on the panel, “Comparative Perspectives on the Environmental/Human Rights Link in the Americas,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Berta Hernandez-Truyol

Commented on the panel, “Comparative Perspectives on the Environmental/Human Rights Link in the Americas,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Lea Johnston

Johnston presented “Wrestling with the Problem: Exploring the Promise of Social Problem-Solving Theory for Representational Competence,” at the American Psychology-Law Society Annual Conference in March, and presented her current work-in-progress, “Mental Health Courts: Theoretical and Empirical Deficiencies,” at the SEALS new scholars workshop in early August.

Pedro Malavet

Presented a paper titled, “Comparative Law as Looking Glass: What Foreign Legal Systems Can Teach us About Ours,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Martin McMahon

Published “Living with the Codified Economic Substance Doctrine” in 128 Tax Notes 731 (Aug. 16, 2010).

Timothy McLendon

Presented “Eco-Constitutionalism: Authority or mandate? Florida’s awkward experience” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Commented on the panel, “Agro-Ranching and the Environment,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Jon Mills

Commented on the panel, “Emerging Legal Issues in Uruguay and the Americas,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Stephen Powell

Presented a paper titled, “Managing the rule of law in the Americas: an empirical portrait of the effects of 15 years of WTO dispute resolution on civil society in Latin America,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Commented on the panel, “Trade, Business, and Dispute Settlement,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Michael T. Olexa

Presented a paper titled, “Chemicals, Cosmetics, and Consumers,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Don Peters

Presented a paper titled, “It Takes Two to Tango, and to Mediate: Legal Cultural and other Factors influencing United States and Latin American Lawyers’ Reluctance to Mediate Commercial Disputes,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Leonard Riskin

Presented “Finding the Appropriate Problem Definition in Mediation” at the Annual Symposium on Dispute Resolution in the Courts in April.

Danny Sokol

Sokol was announced as the series co-editor of the new series “Global Competition Law and Economics,” to be published by Stanford University Press. He has also been appointed as one of the members of the editorial advisory board for the “Antitrust Chronicle,” a publication of Competition Policy International.

Jeff Wade

Commented on the panel, “Agro-Ranching and the Environment,” at the CGR’s 11th annual Conference on Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas in May in Montevideo, Uruguay.