Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

Christine A. Klein

Emeritus Cone, Wagner, Nugent, Hazouri & Roth Professor
Emeritus Professor of Law

CV

SSRN

bepress (SelectedWorks)

Phone:
(352) 273-0964

Expertise

Natural Resources  • Property Law  • Water Law  • 

About

Professor Klein served as the Cone, Wagner, Nugent, Hazouri & Roth Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where she has been on the faculty since 2003. Klein writes in the areas of water law, natural resources law, and property. Her work includes more than thirty academic articles and has been cited in judicial and administrative opinions at both the federal and state levels. She is also the author of three books: Natural Resources Law: A Place-Based Book of Problems and Cases (Wolters Kluwer/Aspen Publishers 5th ed. forthcoming 2022) (with Birdsong, Klass, Biber, Singel & Owen); Property Law: Cases, Problems, and Skills (sole author, Wolters Kluwer/Aspen Publishers 2d ed. 2020); and Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster (NYU Press, 2014) (with Sandra Zellmer).

Professor Klein began her career as a water rights litigator in the Colorado Office of the Attorney General. Prior to joining the UF Law faculty, Klein served on the faculty of Michigan State University College of Law and directed its environmental law certificate program. She received a B.A. from Middlebury College in Vermont; a J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School; and an LL.M. from Columbia University Law School. Her legal experience includes positions as a law clerk for the U.S. District Court, District of Colorado; as a law clerk for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Office of Staff Attorneys (San Francisco summer position); and as a clerk at Goodwin Proctor (formerly Shea & Gardner) in Washington, D.C.

Professor Klein has served on two committees of the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, that studied sustainable water and environmental management in the California Bay-Delta, and she is a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform, based in Washington, D.C.

Education

LL.M., Columbia University School of Law (New York)
J.D., University of Colorado
B.A., Middlebury College (magna cum laude)

Teaching & Scholarship

Natural Resources Law, Water Law, Property

Courses

  • Property

Publications

Books

  • Natural Resources Law: A Place-Based Book of Problems and Cases (5th ed., Aspen Publishers forthcoming 2022) (with Federico Cheever, Bret Birdsong, Alexandra Klass & Eric Biber).
  • Property: Cases, Problems, and Skills (Aspen Publishers, 2d ed. 2020)
  • Natural Resources Law: A Place-Based Book of Problems and Cases (Aspen Publishers, 4th ed. 2018) (lead author, with Cheever, Birdsong, Klass & Biber)
  • Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster (with Sandra B. Zellmer) (NYU Press, 2014) (describing floods and hurricanes on the Mississippi from its headwaters to its delta and exploring policy implications for areas including environmental justice, wetlands protection, agricultural policy, federal subsidies, flood control, flood insurance, and regulatory takings law) [Introduction]

Book Chapters

  • “Floods as Unnatural Disasters: The Role of Law,” in Western Water Policy and Planning in a Variable and Changing Climate  (Kathleen A. Miller, et al. eds.) (CRC Press, 2018) (with Sandra Zellmer)
  • “Survey of Florida Water Law” in Waters and Water Rights (Robert E. Beck, ed.) (Matthew Bender & Co., Inc.) (entry and annual updates, 2005-2011)

Articles

  • Groundwater Exceptionalism: The Disconnect Between Law and Science, 71 Emory L.J. (forthcoming 2021) [SSRN]
  • The National Flood Insurance Program at Fifty: How the Fifth Amendment Takings Doctrine Skews Federal Flood Policy, 31 Georgetown Envtl. L. Rev. 285 (2019) [SSRN]
  • Owning Groundwater, 35 Virginia Envtl. L.J. 474 (2017) [SSRN]
  • Climate Change and Water Transfers, (with Jesse Reiblich), 41 Pepp. L. Rev. 405 (2014) [SSRN]
  • Compartmentalized Thinking and the Clean Water Act, 4 Geo. Wash. J. Energy & Envtl. L. 38 (2013) [SSRN]
  • Water Bankruptcy, 97 Minnesota Law Review 560 (2012) [SSRN]
  • The Dormant Commerce Clause and Water Export: Toward a New Analytical Paradigm, 35 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 131 (2011) [SSRN]
  • The Environmental Deficit: Applying Lessons from the Economic Recession, 51 Ariz. L. Rev. 651 (2009) [SSRN]
  • Modernizing Water Law: The Example of Florida (with Angelo & Hamann), 61 Fla. L. Rev. 403 (2009) [SSRN]
  • Cultural Norms as a Source of Law: The Example of Bottled Water (with Ling-Yee Huang), 30 Cardozo L. Rev. 507 (2008) [SSRN]
  • Water Transfers: The Case Against Transbasin Diversions in the Eastern States, 25 UCLA J. Envtl. L. & Pol’y 249 (2007) [SSRN]
  • The New Nuisance: An Antidote to Wetland Loss, Sprawl, and Global Warming, 48 B.C. L. Rev. 1155 (2007) [SSRN]
  • Mississippi River Stories: Lessons from a Century of Unnatural Disasters (with Sandra B. Zellmer), 60 SMU L. Rev. 1471 (2007) [SSRN]
  • The Law of the Lakes: From Protectionism to Sustainability (symposium), 2006 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1259 , reprinted in ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: PRINCIPLES AND GOVERNANCE (A..Usha, ed., Icfai University Press, India, 2007) [SSRN]
  • On Integrity: Some Considerations for Water Law, 56 Ala. L. Rev. 1009 (2005) [SSRN]
  • The Environmental Commerce Clause, 27 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 1 (2003) [SSRN]

Miscellaneous

  • “Midwestern Flooding Isn’t a Natural Disaster,” in The Atlantic, Mar. 21, 2019 (solicited essay) [available here]
  • “Missouri River Floodplain Owners Seeking a ‘Double-Take’ from the Taxpayers,” (with Sandra Zellmer) in Center for Progressive Reform Blog (2014)
  • “Natural Floods, Unnatural Disasters,” (with Sandra Zellmer) in The Hill (2014)
  • “Christine A. Klein on Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, 133 S. Ct. 2120 (2013),” 2013 Emerging Isues. 7075 (2013)
  • “The Lesson of Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann: Water Conservation, not Water Commerce,” in Center for Progressive Reform Blog (2013)
  • Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta (co-author as member of National Research Council Committee on Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta) (2012)
  • A Review of the Use of Science and Adaptive Management in California’s Draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan (co-author as member of Panel to Review California’s Draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan) (National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011)

University of Florida Levin College of Law
309 Village Drive
PO Box 117620
Gainesville, FL 32611
(352) 273-0804
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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.