Environmental, Land Use, & Real Estate Law

Florida’s sensitive, varied and beautiful natural environment makes the University of Florida a natural choice for students who want to focus on the national and global issues of real estate, land use, and environmental law. Florida provides a perfect setting to study first-hand the efforts to reconcile growth and conservation.

The Environmental, Land Use & Real Estate Law Program educates future lawyers through an innovative approach that combines the study of real estate and land use law with environmental law. Many environmental problems result from inappropriate uses of land. Air and water pollution, toxic and hazardous waste, endangered species protection and balancing public health and environmental values against the protection of private property interests are challenges that face every community.

Environmental, Land Use, and Real Estate Law

kayaking In today’s complex legal practice, lawyers increasingly must specialize. Through the Environmental, Land Use, & Real Estate Law Program, students can graduate from law school with a valuable credential that indicates both concentration and accomplishment in these two fields. Students have the option of pursuing either the Environmental and Land Use Track or the Real Estate and Land Use Track.

Student Opportunities

Through programs offered on campus and abroad, Florida Law students gain international experience and exposure and a distinguishing edge in today’s competitive job market. Students benefit from decades of international experience and involvement by faculty.

Environmental and Community Development Clinic

This course will provide upper-level law students with an interest in environmental law, land use law, and local government law and graduate students in related fields with exposure to transactional environmental and land use professional practice, applied research, and public policy analysis under the supervision of the instructor/clinic director.

Summer Clerkships and Internships

ELUREL students are placed in summer clerkships and internships throughout Florida, the United States, and in other countries. Students work for law firms, federal, state, and local governments, as well as non-governmental organizations and corporations. Faculty work with students to assist them in finding summer placements within their area of interest. Fellowships may be available to assist financially with summer placements.

Semester in Practice Program

Since the inception of the Semester in Practice Program, ELUREL students have spent semesters during their 3L year working for a variety of environmental and land use government and non-governmental organizations, as well as private law firms and companies.

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.