The Center for Estate Planning

UF Law has made a significant institutional commitment to sustaining one of the strongest estate planning curricula in the country because of the importance of the estate planning field to the State of Florida. The State of Florida has welcomed exceptional growth in estate planning and administration in recent years. The growth in Florida’s estate planning industry can be attributed to many factors: the overall demographic move toward the Sun Belt, favorable income and estate tax laws, retiree-friendly communities, and asset protection, to name a few. The convergence of our state demographics, the top tier status of our law school, the stature of our professors, and the national recognition of our exceptional Tax LL.M. program create an academic atmosphere with distinct emphasis on a strong estates and trusts curricula.

UF Law’s commitment to a robust estate planning program is shown through its ongoing, generous support of the Center for Estate Planning. The Center for Estate Planning integrates teaching, training, research, scholarship and public service with the goals of advancing estates and trusts knowledge, law, policy, professionalism and skills.

Estate Planning Program

In addition, the Center for Estate Planning administers the Estate Planning Program, which is designed to give students a well-rounded legal education with focus in the areas of estates and trusts planning, drafting and administration (thereby implicating the laws of gifts, loans, intestate succession, wills, trusts, future interests, probate, fiduciary law, family holding entities, valuation discounts, and taxation). Our friendly and knowledgeable professors and staff are very accessible for career counseling and advice, as well.

Opportunities for Learning

The Center for Estate Planning provides students, faculty and community members alike with the opportunity to participate in events pertinent to estate planning issues. Accordingly, the Center hosts a lecture series on pertinent issues in distinct areas of this diverse legal discipline. In this regard, the Center tries to host speakers in the following areas: non-tax estate planning, tax estate planning, fiduciary administration, charitable giving, and ethics.

Academic Opportuntiies

Recognizing that a sufficient education in estate planning requires practical experience, the Center for Estate Planning enhances the classroom experience by facilitating student placement in judicial externships for academic credit in the probate divisions of several judicial circuits. In addition, the Center hosts presentations by active practitioners about career issues distinct to estate planning and provides other net-working opportunities. By providing real world experience to students, the Center for Estate Planning is able to incorporate an aspect to the study of estates and trusts that simply cannot be gleaned from the academic setting alone.

Student Involvement

The Center for Estate Planning also thrives on student involvement. The Center oversees and provides student opportunities in community service programs through the Estates and Trusts Law Society. The Center also works closely with the Graduate Tax Program and the UF Institute for Learning in Retirement to provide courses in adult education on estate planning.

The Florida Constitutional Law Endowment in memory of Justice Ben F. Overton was created by Judge Karen Miller in 2013. This fund supports lectures and presentations by Justices of the Florida Supreme Court at the Fredric G. Levin College of Law.

HISTORY

Justice Overton, who earned his B.S. in 1951 and his Juris Doctor in 1952 from the University of Florida, was the first merit appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. Throughout his career he was active in legal education and served as an Adjunct Professor at the Levin College of Law through December 2012, the month of his death. Although he resided at Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, a continuing care retirement community developed in cooperation with UF, he also considered the Florida Supreme Court “home.” Among the high points of his later years was hosting Justices of the Florida Supreme Court in Gainesville and taking his class to Tallahassee to hear oral arguments at the Florida Supreme Court.
Judge Miller, who earned her B.S. cum laude from New York University in 1974 and her Juris Doctor from New York Law School in 1977, served as Chief Administrative Law Judge of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, New York City’s business regulatory agency, before she retired to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Having accompanied Justice Overton on his excursions to Tallahassee and joined him in welcoming guests to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, she created the endowment in memory of Justice Overton to ensure that the Levin College of Law continues to have the funding necessary to continue and enhance the interaction between its students and the Florida Supreme Court.

Judge Miller remembered the event that motivated the endowment.

Prior to a dinner at the home of Dean Robert Jerry and Lisa Jerry shortly after Justice Overton’s death, Justice Barbara Pariente and I were discussing a suitable memorial. Justice Pariente, who had been Justice Overton’s colleague on the Florida Supreme Court and who understood the importance to him of the interaction between his students and the Court, suggested the outline of what has become the Overton lectures. Dean Jerry, who has since retired, as has Dean Emeritus Jon Mills, who assumed responsibility for implementing the Overton lectures, were very supportive from the beginning. Since Dean Mills’ retirement, Professor Timothy McClendon, who assisted both Justice Overton and Dean Mills teaching Florida Constitutional Law and who co-authored the recent Florida Constitutional Law casebook, has continued the Overton lectures with the support of Interim Dean Merritt McAlister and CGR director, Professor Danaya Wright.

Justice Overton was a devoted jurist, educator, and ethical leader of the Florida legal profession. The Overton Lecture Series brings Florida Supreme Court Justices to the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, and serves to introduce students to the inner workings of the Court. CGR and the students of the College of Law extend our deepest gratitude to Judge Karen Miller for making the Overton Lectures possible in perpetuity.

You can watch an interview for the Florida Historical Society by Mary Adkins, professor emeritus of the UF Levin College of Law, with Justice Overton here.

Justice Overton was also interviewed for the Samuel Proctor Oral History Project and a transcript of his interview is available at the Smathers Library, and here.
Justice Overton sat on the Constitution Revision Commission of 1977-78 that proposed a right to privacy in the Florida Constitution. Although it failed as part of the Constitution Revision Commission recommendations, it passed in 1980 when proposed by the legislature. The bill was co-sponsored by our very own Jon Mills. The privacy provision prevailed by greater than 60%. Justice Overton then wrote a concurrence in a critical reproductive rights case in 1989 affirming that the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution included the right to obtain an abortion. That decision was overruled in Planned Parenthood of SW and Central Florida v. Florida. You can read about the role of Justice Overton, Jon Mills – director emeritus of CGR, and the history of the 1989 case here.