Ben Fernandez
Master Lecturer and Master Legal Skills Professor
Email:
fernandez@law.ufl.edu
Phone:
(352) 273-0937
Expertise
Contract Negotiation and Drafting • Legal Document Drafting • Legal Research • Legal Writing •
About
Professor Fernandez teaches Legal Drafting (litigation documents, contracts and legislative documents) at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. He previously taught Legal Methods (Legal Analysis), Legal Research and Objective Writing, Lawyering Process for Litigation Practice, and Transactional Drafting at Florida Coastal School of Law. Also, he worked as an adjunct professor teaching Legal Writing at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, and Business Law at Cape Cod Community College.
Professor Fernandez has twenty-five years experience representing financial institutions, government housing finance agencies, non-profit corporations, home buyers and sellers, and other clients in commercial and residential mortgage loan closings, affordable housing finance transactions, and residential real estate developments. He had his own practice in Plymouth, Massachusetts for ten years. Before that, he practiced law in the city of Boston for fifteen years. He worked as in-house counsel for a state-sponsored affordable housing finance agency, managed the business department of a prominent minority-owned firm, and was an associate at two large Boston law firms.
Professor Fernandez also served on the Board of Directors for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Plymouth, Massachusetts. He was a volunteer teacher in Junior Achievement’s Financial Literacy program, and a regular speaker at Homebuyer Education Workshops sponsored by South Shore Housing and Housing Assistance Corporation on Cape Cod.
Professor Fernandez was a recipient of 2013 “Diversity Award” from Jacksonville Business Journal. He is a member of the Legal Writing Institute.
Education
LL.M. Boston University School of Law
J.D. Northeastern University School of Law
B.A. Cornell University,
Teaching and Scholarship
Legal Drafting (drafting litigation documents, contracts, and legislation), Legal Writing, Legal Writing II – Persuasive Writing, Transactional Drafting and Legal Analysis
Courses
- Legal Drafting
- Legal Writing
- Legal Writing II – Persuasive Writing
Publications
Books
- Legal Writing I & II: Legal Research and Writing & Introduction to Litigation Practice (2021). [Link]
- Transactional Drafting: Introduction to Contract Drafting and Transactional Practice (2021). [Link]
Articles
- “We Need to Understand How ChatGPT Can Be Used for a Contract Drafting Class and Change Our Pedagogy to Compensate,” 30 Persps. 63 (2023).
- “Should Students Read and Apply Cases in a Contract Drafting Class?,” 43 The Second Draft (December, 2021).
- “A Letter to My Younger (Teaching Self),” AALS LWRR Section Newsletter (Summer 2018).
- “Opportunities for Collaboration in Transactional Drafting,” UF Law Faculty Blogs, April 1, 2018.
- “Ferrari Has Really Fast Race Cars, A Mnemonic for Doing a Case Analogy in the “A” Section of IRAC,” Institute for Law Teaching and Learning Blog, February 9, 2018. [Link, please scroll down]
- “Avoiding the ‘Paper Research’ v. ‘Computer Research’ Trap,” The Law Teacher, Journal of the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, Volume XXIV, Number 1, Fall 2017. [Link]
- “Everything a 2L Really Needs to Know About Citation,” Before the Bar Blawg – ABA Journal for Law Students, November 21, 2017. [Link]
- “The Duties of Mutual Fund Independent Trustees with Respect to the Investment Advisory Fee,” Boston Bar Journal, March / April 1997, at 12.
- Federal Government May Revise Terminology for “Hispanics,” Noticias, Newsletter of the Hispanic National Bar Association, Winter 1996, at 11.
- Affirmative Action after Adarand,” Noticias, Newsletter of the Hispanic National Bar Association, Fall 1995, at 11.
- “Affirmative Action in Mass. After ‘Adarand,’” Mass Lawyers Weekly, August 21, 1995, at 11.
- “Lien’s Attachment to Fire Insurance Proceeds,” Mass Lawyers Weekly, May 3, 1993, at 11.
- “Banned,” American Motorcyclist Magazine, May, 1992, at 40 (discusses a court decision banning motorcyclists from D.W. Field Park in Brockton, Massachusetts).
- “RTC May Disaffirm Part of ‘Divisible’ Contract,” Mass Lawyers Weekly, March 23, 1992, at 11.