Centers and Institutes

Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations

The CSRRR is committed to de-stigmatizing race in America. With the objective of fostering communities of dialogue, the Center embraces historically and empirically based thinking, talking, teaching, and writing on race.

To this end, the Center creates and supports programs designed to enhance race-related curriculum development for faculty, staff and students in collegiate and professional schools. Of the five U.S. law schools with race centers, the CSRRR is uniquely focused on curriculum development.

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.

The Center administers the Estate Planning Program, which is designed to cultivate and train the next generation of estate planning lawyers. Visit the Estate Planning Program page for more information.

The Center works closely with the Graduate Tax Program and the UF Institute for Learning in Retirement.

Center on Children and Families

This Center developed and administers the concentration in Family Law program in order to train a new generation of advocates for children and their families.

The Center’s other goals and activities include promoting quality scholarship on issues of importance to children and families through an annual conference and support of research fellows, developing interdisciplinary and child-centered methods for studying systems serving children, educating children and families about their rights and responsibilities in a free society, and building a state-of-the art library collection for the study of children’s law and policy.

Center for Governmental Responsibility

As the state’s oldest legal and public policy research institute, the Center for Governmental Responsibility (CGR) has been a mainstay for environmental and social policy research at the College of Law since 1972.

CGR lawyers have affected more public policy decisions during the past 20 years than any other organization of its nature and scope in Florida.

Race and Crime Center for Justice

Building on the longstanding reputation of the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations, the Race and Crime Center for Justice (RCCJ) will focus on pressing national issues involving the impact of race on crime and justice. Policing, courts and corrections form the broad expanse of focal points for the Center’s work.

As well, laws, criminal-legal policies, theories, and applications offer frameworks for the Center’s focus. The RCCJ will conduct research and produce scholarship with an eye towards policy application.

Institute for Dispute Resolution

The Institute for Dispute Resolution promotes innovation in teaching methodologies, scholarship, and service in dispute resolution domestically and internationally. The Institute also supports to the Law School’s student led ADR organizations.

The Institute for Dispute Resolution was the first of its kind in Florida, thanks to a generous grant from Upchurch Watson White & Max Mediation Group in 1999. Under the Direction of Professor Joan Stearns Johnsen and with the advice and support of alumni and students, the Institute continues to serve our students, alumni, and the community with original and state of the art content and training.

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.