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Rebecca Bowles Hawkins

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Rebecca Bowles Hawkins 1910-2000

Class of 1935

Became first female Assistant Attorney General in Florida in 1948 and headed office’s opinions division (1969-1976); full-time Research Assistant for Florida Supreme Court Justice B.K. Roberts; served as President of Florida (1954-1955) and National Association of Women Lawyers (1960-1961); named 1997 UF Alumnae of Outstanding Achievement.

When Rebecca Bowles Hawkins began her 1L year at UF Law in 1932 the legal profession was, to put it mildly, dominated by men. During her criminal law course, Hawkins recalled being excused from class the day the professor lectured about the legal theory of rape. “It would have been embarrassing for me as well as embarrassing for the students,” she explained in a 1994 interview.

Hawkins was the only woman in the class, and the male students “just sort of accepted me,” she said. Figuring she had to set an example as one of the few women admitted to the law school – and 15 years before women were enrolled as University of Florida undergraduates – Hawkins studied hard.

“I was second in the class,” she said. “I felt as though it was incumbent upon me to make a very good showing since I was entering a field that was unusual for women.”

Hawkins continued to set an example as she launched a career blazing paths for women in Florida’s legal profession. Hawkins rose to become the first assistant attorney general of Florida. She argued criminal cases before the state Supreme Court and later served as the long-time chief of the Attorney General Office’s Opinions Division. As assistant to Justice B.K. Roberts (JD 28), she was also the first full-time researcher employed by the Florida Supreme Court.

Hawkins was born in Big Sandy, Tenn., and moved to Hastings, Fla., when she was 10. She described an idyllic childhood where her father owned a general store and loved to go to the beach and fish while her mother was a homemaker.

Hawkins struggled in a small Bradenton law firm right out of college where she made so little money that her parents continued to support her. She switched over to secretarial work for a salary boost. Hawkins moved to Washington, D.C., was married and then divorced after the war. Her son Jonathan Marks came back with her to Florida, and she soon moved to Tallahassee and went to work in the Florida Attorney General’s office. In 1948, Attorney General J. Tom Watson appointed her a full assistant attorney general.

Hawkins led other women in the legal profession as president of the Florida Association of Women Lawyers, which was followed by a term as president of the National Association of Women Lawyers. She also served as a member of the National Bar Association House of Delegates.

In 1994, Hawkins endowed a $50,000 scholarship fund for women attending UF Law. The Ernest B. and Estelle Pierce Bowles Memorial Scholarship honors her parents, the people who believed “(I) could do anything I wanted to do.”

Published: June 27th, 2014

Category: Alumni

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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.