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Joe Fluet (JD 99) to UF Law Graduates: Embrace Challenges, Prioritize Relationships

Joe Fluet (JD 99) to UF Law Graduates: Embrace Challenges, Prioritize Relationships

Fluet delivered the Class of 2025 commencement address on May 16, 2025

During his Commencement address to the University of Florida Levin College of Law Class of 2025, Joe Fluet (JD 99) asked graduates to keep two things in mind as they move forward in life: to be kind to themselves in the face of future challenges, and to stay focused on the relationships they make and maintain along the way.

Fluet graduated from UF Law in 1999 with high honors after returning from active military duty. Today, he works with a variety of legal and business matters that include government inquiries and internal investigations, corporate structures and business transactions, export compliance and government contracts.

With decades of experience in the legal field, Fluet imparted some key lessons for graduates as they head into their careers.

For his first lesson, Fluet encouraged new grads to look forward with confidence, but to also anticipate the hardships that may come.

“It will happen to all of us, and when that happens, I urge you to give yourselves a break,” Fluet said. “Cut yourself a break, yourselves and your peers, because we all have those days.”

After asking graduates to be kind to themselves in their careers, Fluet encouraged students to take a moment to reflect on the magnitude of their graduation.

“You have achieved something truly extraordinary,” Fluet said. “This is a destination. You have arrived.”

His second, and most important, lesson: stay focused on the people that surround you in life.

“Take a second right now,” Fluet told graduates. “Look around, look at your peers, your family and your friends, your faculty – maybe they are what it’s all about.”

Fluet emphasized that life is not just about career accomplishments, it’s about relationships.

“The importance of relationships really serves to highlight how fortunate we are to get to be lawyers,” Fluet said. “It’s about the people and the relationships, and you’re entering a profession that focuses on that.”

 

 
Learn more about Fluet’s career in this announcement. You may view the full ceremony recording here. For more information about our Class of 2025 graduation events, view our commencement page.

Published: May 21st, 2025

Category: News

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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.