Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

Claire M. Germain

Emeritus Professor and Emeritus Associate Dean for Legal Information

CV

SSRN

bepress (SelectedWorks)

Mailing Address:
Box #117628 Gainesville, FL 32611

Phone:
(352) 273-0703

About

Professor Germain joined the UF College of Law in 2011 as Associate Dean for Legal Information & Clarence J. TeSelle Professor of Law. She served as the Director of the 2016 UF Law Paris/Montpellier Summer Program. Her previous experience includes positions at Cornell Law School and Duke University School of Law, and a fellowship at the Max-Planck-Institute, Hamburg, Germany. She has taught in France, Spain, and Poland. She is a specialist in legal research, and has published several books and numerous articles, including Germain’s Transnational Law Research, which received the 1992 Joseph L. Andrews Award. Her scholarship focuses on comparative law, French law, and global legal research. Some of her recent book chapters and articles were on the CISG (UN Convention on International Sales), the French criminal jury, digitizing the world’s laws, authentication of official legal documents, and legal information management in a global and digital world. Her article on approaches to statutory interpretation and legislative history in France has been included in two comparative law casebooks.

Professor Germain received the Chevalier (Knight), French Legion of Honor in 2007, for her work in bridging the U.S. and French legal cultures. She is Professor Emerita, Cornell Law School. From 2009-15, she served as Chair, Section on Law Libraries, International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), and in 2006-07, as President, American Association of Law Libraries. She has been a consultant to various organizations, including the International Criminal Court, The Hague, The Netherlands; the International Criminal Court for Rwanda, Arusha, Tanzania; and the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico. She was an invited participant, Access to Foreign Law Project, Joint Conference of European Commission and the Hague Conference on Private International Law, Brussels, Belgium, in 2012. In 2013, she was elected to the International Academy of Comparative Law. She is fluent in French, English, and German.

Education

M.L.L., University of Denver. Beta Phi Mu.
M.C.L., Louisiana State University School of Law
Licence-en-Droit (LL.B), University of Paris XII
Licence- ès-Lettres, (German), cum laude, University of Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle.

Teaching and Scholarship

French Law; Comparative Law; International and Foreign Legal Research; Legal Information and Technology

Publications

Book Chapters

  • “Reducing Babelism: CISG Translation Issues” in International Law Sales: A Global Challenge 51 (L. DiMatteo ed.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014)
  • “Digitizing the World’s Laws,” in International Handbook of Information Management 181 (Richard Danner and Jules Winterton, eds.) (Ashgate, 2011)
  • “CISG: Translation Issues: Reducing Legal Babelism,” in Global Challenge of International Sales Law, (L. DiMatteo, ed.) (Cambridge U. Press, 2013) [SSRN]

Articles

  • Worldwide Access to Foreign Law: International and National Developments Toward Digital Authentication, 9 Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific- Journal de Droit Comparé du Pacifique 185 (2013) [SSRN]
  • The French Jury at a Crossroads, (with Valerie P. Hans), 74 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 101 (2011) [SSRN]

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.