Levin College of Law
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Jon L. Mills

Emeritus Professor
Emeritus Dean

CV

SSRN

bepress (SelectedWorks)

Phone:
(352) 273-0835

About

Jon Mills is Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus at UF Law. He also served as Director and Co-Director of Center for Governmental Responsibility. He is Counsel to Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. Mr. Mills is former Dean of UF Levin College of Law from 1999-2003 and former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, served as member of the 1997-1998 Florida Constitution Revision Commission (as Chair of Style and Drafting Committee and was selected Most Valuable Member). He was the reporter for the ABA’s Task Force on Preservation of the Justice System in 2011 and is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Professor Mills teaches Privacy, State Constitutional Law, Law and Policy in the Americas and Legislative Drafting. He has taught and lectured on privacy in Germany, Great Britain, Poland, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, and in the Department of State’s US Speakers and Specialists program. He has written books, reports and multiple law review articles on public policy issues including two books on privacy: Privacy: The Lost Right (Oxford University Press 2008) and Privacy in the Mew Media Age (University Press of Florida 2015). His chapter “Privacy in the Surveillance Era” was featured in After Snowden, which was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2015. He has been Principal Investigator on totaling over three million U.S. Dollars in research funding, including grants from U.S Department of State and the MacArthur Foundation.

Professor Mills is a globally recognized expert in privacy and cyber security issues. He appeared in landmark litigation including high profile privacy intrusion cases representing the families of Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Gianni Versace, and Sea World trainer Dawn Brancheau. He was also counsel in cases to prevent disclosure of information from electronic intrusions and hacking. He has lectured on privacy to judges, attorneys and corporate counsel.

He has been quoted by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and Washington Post among others and has appeared on CNN, NPR, ABC, and the BBC to discuss privacy and other public policy issues.

Education

J.D., University of Florida (with honors)
B.A., Stetson University

Courses

  • Constitutional Law
  • Cybersecurity and Cybercrime
  • Florida Constitutional Law

Publications

Representative Recent Publications

  • Privacy, Mass Intrusion, and the Modern Data Breach, 69 Fla. L. Rev. 771 (2018) (with Kelsey Harclerode) [SSRN]
  • The Meaning of “Equal”: Evolution of Racial Equality in the United States, 29 Fla. J. Int’l L. 285 (2017)
  • Privacy Revisited: A Global Perspective on the Right to Be Left Alone, 53 Tulsa L. Rev. 321 (2018) {reviewing Ronald J. Krotosynski, Jr., Privacy Revisited: A Global Perspective on the Right to be Left Alone (2018)}
  • Privacy in the New Media Age, University Press of Florida, 2015 [SSRN]
  • “The Future of Privacy in the Surveillance Age,” in After Snowden: National Security, Public Information, and the Aftermath of the Snowden Affair. Thomas Dunne Books: St. Martin Press. Ronald Goldfarb, ed., May 2015
  • At Issue: Can Edward Snowden be considered a whistleblower? CQ Researcher 113 (Jan. 13, 2014)
  • Whither Communism: A Comparative Perspective on Constitutionalism in a Postsocialist Cuba, Geo. Wash. Int’l L. Rev. (2009) [SSRN]
  • Privacy: The Lost Right, Oxford University Press, 2008 [SSRN]
  • Law Schools as Agents of Change and Justice Reform in the Americas, 20 Fla. J. Int’l L. 5-29, (2008). [SSRN]
  • Two Contemporary Privacy Issues in Poland: Liability for Internet Publication and the Registration of Communist Party Affiliation, 1 Przeglad Prawniczy Warsaw U. L. Rev., 110-121, (May 2008).
  • Legal Education in the Americas: The Anchor for Hemispheric Justice, 17 Fla. J. Int’l L. 1-8, (2005).
  • The Rewards of Citizenship & Perils of Identity: How the Law Defines You in the Globalized World, III:2 Warsaw U. L. Rev. 95-127, Special Edition, (June 2004).
  • Responding to Terrorism and Achieving Stabilities in the Global Financial System: Rational Policy or Crisis Reaction?, 11:4 J. of Financial Crime 380-396, Henry Stewart Publications, UK, (May 2004).
  • Principles for Constitutions and Institutions in Promoting the Rule of Law, 16:1 Fla. J. Int’l L. 115-131, (2003).
  • Florida on Trial: Federalism in the 2000 Presidential Election, 13.1 Stan. L. & Pol. Rev. 83 (2002).
  • Diversity in Law Schools: Where are We Headed in the Twenty-first Century, 33 U. Tol. L. Rev. 119 (2001).
  • Educating to Meet the Demands of Florida Business and Law Schools, 14 Fla. J. Int’l L. 117 (2001).
  • Legal Standards, Political Pressures: Redistricting in Florida, 1970-2000 in MAPPING FLORIDA’S POLITICAL LANDSCAPE 103 (2001) (with Richard Scher).
  • Ethics in Governance: Developing Moral Public Service, 8 J. Financial Crime (2001).
  • Beyond Election 2000: Law & Policy in the New Millennium, 13 U. Fla. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 69 (2001).
  • Internet Casinos: A Sure Bet for Money Laundering, 19 Dickinson J. Int’l L. 77 (2000).
  • Setting a New Standard for Public Education: Revision 6 Increases the Duty of the State to Make ‘Adequate Provision’ for Florida Schools, 52 Fla. L. Rev. 329 (2000) (with Timothy McLendon).

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.