Letters
Concerning UF Moot Court
Dear Ms. Brounley:
As University of Florida Law graduates and chairman and co-chairman of the moot court team from the Class of 1988, we both read your fall 2008 edition of UF LAW with great interest. The appearance of Chief Justice Roberts is an incredible accomplishment for our alma mater. However, the caption under the chief justice’s photograph, which reads that his participation “marks the first time in the UF moot court’s nearly 100-year history that a justice of the United States Supreme Court” had participated on the panel of a final four, is in error.
We should know. When we were in law school, we were in charge of creating the intramural competition and final four in the fall of 1987. To humor ourselves, we decided to invite each member of the United States Supreme Court to judge the final four that we were planning. We thought it would be great to get rejection letters back from the justices as mementos of the occasion.
One by one, each justice responded and, not surprisingly, declined our invitation to join us in Gainesville… their letters were posted in the moot court office one by one for all to see. Only one justice did not send a rejection letter. Justice Byron “Whizzer” White.
One day, we returned to the moot court office from class and saw a tiny post-it note to “Call the United States Supreme Court” along with a scribbled phone number. Trying to determine which of our classmates had set us up with a practical joke proved futile, so finally we called the number just to see who was pulling the prank. The voice on the other end answered “Justice White.” Still, we were wondering who had gotten their grandfather to answer this call to the DC area code.
A few minutes later, and a little convincing from the justice himself, we realized it was no joke. Justice White had given us his direct line and agreed to come to Gainesville and head our panel. He had wanted to visit Disney World with his lovely wife, Marion, and agreed to stop along the way to judge the final four.
Dean Read was so excited that we had “pulled this off” that he gave us free reign to handle the entire trip and visit. As a result, we spent two full days with Justice White and his wife, from the airport pick-up to the final goodbyes. The final four was moved to the University Auditorium to handle the huge crowd, and four nervous law students argued the case of Kent Pack vs. Sands Hospital about a fictional hospital employee whose privacy rights had been violated by a work publication. We remember it well, because we wrote the record on appeal, and had the distinct pleasure of educating Justice White about the intricacies of the case before he went on stage. We also remember a certain local hospital threatening to file suit against the school and us over their perceived similarities to our fictional case.
Not to add insult to injury, but we both recall being told Justice White was not the first Supreme Court justice to judge at the college either. One of the deans at the time told us that Justice Thurgood Marshall had graced the UF campus at one time for a moot court competition years before.
The visit by Justice White was a special moment in the history of the law school, as was Chief Justice Roberts’ recent visit. Let us hope that another 20 years does not pass before another Supreme Court justice visits the hallowed halls of the UF law school.
Editor’s note: Thank you for setting the record straight in such an enjoyable and informative way. While I’ve not been able to substantiate Justice Marshall’s UF visit to judge moot court (anybody out there have information about this?), Justice White’s visit was, indeed, an exceptional event for UF Law. In this photograph Justice White (center) flanked by Judge Peter T. Fay (JD 56) on the left and Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat to the right (along with three other judges), consider the competition’s hypothetical case in which the privacy of an individual infected with HIV/AIDS was violated in the workplace. Privacy and HIV/AIDS was a hot topic in 1988 and many of the questions posed by the hypothetical had yet to be decided in real courts.
