Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

The JD Program

UF Law: Preparing Our Students for Sophisticated Legal Practice

A Foundation of Critical
Thinking, Legal Analysis,
Substantive Law, and
Lawyering Skills

UF Law prepares students to become highly skilled attorneys and leaders. This preparation involves more than just mere knowledge of the law.
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Continuous Focus On
Professional Identity,
Ethics, and Leadership

To become successful attorneys, students must think deeply about the meaning of their own careers, cultivate a strong professional identity, and adhere to a code of ethics.
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Social Justice & Public
Interest Lawyering
UF Law takes pride in our many alums who use their law degrees to promote social justice and the public interest, and we support future public interest lawyers in multiple ways.
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Structuring Transactions & Fostering Innovation
UF Law helps students understand complex legal agreements and develop the drafting and strategic skills needed for sophisticated legal practice.
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Dispute Resolution
for the Future
UF Law helps students become problem solvers so they may ultimately resolve the conflicts of their clients in effective and creative ways.
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A Foundation of Critical Thinking, Legal Analysis, Substantive Law, and Lawyering Skills

UF Law prepares students to become highly skilled attorneys and leaders. This preparation involves more than just mere knowledge of the law. Students must also hone their critical thinking skills and develop new skills related to legal analysis, legal research, systems-thinking, and the types of oral and written communications expected by judges and clients. Students learn how to effectively solve problems, negotiate, interact with others, manage projects, work in teams, and receive feedback to improve their performance. Through coursework, co-curricular activities, and other opportunities for growth, we help students acquire the competencies they need to reach their professional and personal goals.

1L Curriculum

During the first year, students study foundational areas of the law and develop essential competencies to become highly skilled attorneys and leaders in the legal profession. As they learn legal doctrine, students deepen their critical thinking skills and learn how to engage in legal analysis. Students also learn the art of effective legal research and writing. In our Introduction to Lawyering course, students develop other skills related to problem solving, active listening, and interviewing, counseling, and negotiation. Students also engage in cross-curricular exercises designed to develop systems-thinking skills and deepen understandings of how different areas of the law interact in complex and nuanced ways.


➤ Civil Procedure

➤ Contracts

➤ Constitutional Law

➤ Criminal Law

➤ Introduction to Lawyering and the Legal Profession

➤ Legal Research


➤ Legal Writing

➤ Property

➤ Torts

Upper Level Specialty Areas

During the second and third years of law school, students may enroll in an array of upper level courses, co-curricular activities, clinical experiences, and field placements, all designed to help them learn specialized content and further develop the essential competencies introduced during the 1L year. Students also take a required course in legal drafting that broadens their understandings of transactional legal practice.

Other Upper Level Opportunities

journals

competition teams

Continuous Focus On Professional Identity, Ethics, and Leadership

To become successful attorneys and leaders, students must think deeply about the meaning of their own careers, cultivate a strong professional identity, and develop and adhere to a code of ethics. Although these are lifelong pursuits, UF Law helps students begin this important journey during 1L orientation and throughout their coursework. Outside of class, students develop their professional identities by participating in individualized sessions with members of UF Law’s Career and Professional Development Team and other programming offered by the Office of Career and Professional Development.

Social Justice and Public Interest Lawyering

UF Law takes pride in our many alums who use their law degrees to promote social justice and the public interest, and we provide multiple opportunities for our students to join in that pursuit. Our clinics and field placements provide real world practice experience locally and around the nation. Additionally, we provide funding for students who wish to work with government entities and public interest organizations during the summer. UF Law’s centers also explore the many ways in which the law both promotes and thwarts social justice and produce research and policy proposals designed to increase access to justice. Our pro bono service requirement encourages all students, even those whose career goals do not focus on issues of social justice and public interest, to make contributions to their community, and begin meeting the expectations of the profession.

Structuring Transactions & Fostering Innovation

UF Law helps students understand complex legal agreements and develop the drafting and strategic skills need for sophisticated legal practice. Structuring transactions requires a focus on contractual design and the tax and regulatory frameworks in which clients operate. Deep understandings of clients’ goals are also crucial, as the best lawyers partner with their clients to solve problems and achieve objectives that go well beyond issues of legal compliance. We introduce students to a range of transactions – merger agreements, IP licenses, real estate purchase agreements, and many more – with a focus on how lawyers and clients collaborate to foster innovation and growth.

Dispute Resolution for the Future

UF Law helps students become problem solvers so they may ultimately resolve the conflicts of their clients in effective and creative ways. Dispute resolution has evolved to include arbitration, mediation, and negotiation in addition to litigation. Technology is also rapidly transforming all forms of dispute resolution. We offer a full range of courses related to every form and stage of dispute resolution, all of which focus on building “a theory of the case” and developing the skills needed in each forum. Students enrolled in our clinics put these skills to use as they represent clients under the supervision of licensed attorney. Students may also participate in an array of competition teams that focus on different forms of dispute resolution.

Degree Programs

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.