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Faculty Scholarship and Activities

• Received an Emerald Literati Network 2008 Award for Excellence for publishing the "Outstanding Paper" of 2007, "The Rule of Law: An Essential Component of the Financial War Against Organized Crime and Terrorism in the Americas" (with Theresa A. DiPerna), 14 J. of Financial Crime 405 (2007)

• Bradenton News-Herald, Sept. 10, 2008
  Quoted in an article on the trial of Orlando Valenzuela, a teenager who shot and killed a 9-year-old. Dekle called the judge's sentencing decision a "very delicate balancing sort of process." "It's always tough when you're dealing with a teenager who has killed," said Dekle, a former prosecutor and defense attorney. "You feel tenderness for the youth of a child, but you have to do something to address the wrong that's been done."

• Ocala Star-Banner, Sept. 10, 2008
  Quoted in newspaper article on spring water protection. Water summit delegate Richard Hamann of Gainesville said his hope for the water meeting is that "they do no harm," and do nothing to encourage state-wide transfer of water. Hamann said the state's water agencies should be given authority to dictate appropriate water levels for wildlife without political interference. "There's a tremendous amount of pressure to supply water for future growth," he said.

• Accepted an invitation to serve as an advisory committee member for the SSRN journal Discrimination, Law & Justice.

• The Independent Florida Alligator, Sept. 12, 2008
  Quoted in an article on UF Law ranking as the 10th best school for Hispanic students. Malavet, one of four Hispanic members of UF’s law faculty, said Hispanic students like UF because of the Hispanic professors, the student organizations that cater to Hispanics and the quality of the school, among other reasons. "We’re making progress in making our law school look like our state," he said.

• Florida Times Union, Sept. 11, 2008
  Quoted in an article on state rules for beach building. "We seem to be building too close to the beaches and that threatens the continued existence of the beaches," said Thomas Ruppert, a conservation clinic lawyer and the report's lead author. But after reading state files on "well over 50" projects, Ruppert said, he and other lawyers couldn't tell how the department decided which projects to approve. It wasn't that the wrong developments were approved, he said, but that it wasn't clear why the state considered a particular project good or bad. "It really felt like there's a lack of transparency. ... There just wasn't a good, consistent organization," he said.

• Florida Bar News, Sept. 10, 2008
  Quoted in an article on how the Department of Justice revises how it deals with corporate probes. Seigel, a member of the Attorney-Client Privilege Task Force who dissented from its recommendations on the DOJ guidelines, praised the new policies and said they would avoid problems that could arise from legislation on the matter. "I think the new guidelines are actually quite good. I think that the department has listened to its critics... ," he said. "It’s irrelevant whether a company waives its attorney-client privilege, that’s not the issue. The important thing is a corporation wants to claim cooperation, the key is telling the prosecutor everything you know. Whether it’s privileged or not is essentially irrelevant." Seigel said the new guidelines on providing legal expenses for employees and corporate officers reflected what had happened in the KPMG case, and the Second Circuit ruling makes it the effective law, even without legislative action. He also said it was obvious the department took great care in drafting the new guidelines. "They went out of their way to explain not only this is what we’re going to do, but this is why," Seigel said. "They took a lot of time to try to get it right and calm their critics." He argued legislation isn’t needed because most DOJ policies are rarely changed and legislation, if not "cleared and nuanced" to address all the issues, can make matters worse – a problem he sees with the current bills. He also said even with the new guidelines there can be pressure on corporations to share otherwise privileged information if that’s necessary to show prosecutors that all relevant information has been shared. "If the corporation wants credit for cooperation, there is still implicit pressure ... to waive attorney-client privilege," Seigel said. "If you take that [implicit pressure] away, which essentially the Specter legislation does, there no longer remains any incentive for a company to cooperate in many instances. It really does shift power back to the corporations significantly."

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