Roadmap Terminology

Curriculum Roadmap

This curriculum roadmap is like a guide to the terrain, but it doesn’t choose your route for you. So with roadmap in hand, you may also want to consult one of the listed faculty members who is available to offer academic counseling, or an alumnus or employer whose opinion and judgment you trust. These individuals can help you determine which route will be best for you based on factors unique to you. Only you know what destination you want to reach. And just as each student’s desired destination is different, the paths you follow will be as well. Few if any students interested in Environmental and Land Use Law will take every course listed on this roadmap, and few if any career paths would require such depth in focus. But, whatever your destination within the realm, this roadmap will help you identify some of the key landmarks and points of interest you may want to visit.

Foundation Courses

These are courses that are in some sense the “basic” courses in the field. If you want to be broadly prepared to practice in this field, you should seriously consider taking at least some of these courses, and perhaps even all of them. If you are wondering which courses among all the substantive courses listed here (foundation and specialized electives) to take first, the foundation courses are a good place to start. In some cases, the specialized electives have prerequisites; in others, you may get more out of an elective after you have had at least one related foundation course. However, there is no rigid order you have to follow (except in the case of courses with prerequisites). This means you have flexibility to develop a plan for your curriculum and then adapt that plan, depending on the offerings in a given semester, schedule conflicts with other courses you want to prioritize, and other factors.

Specialized Electives

These are courses that offer you the opportunity to go into more depth on a specialized topic within this field or practice area. Depending on the particular practice setting or type of practice you want to pursue, some of these electives may be a good stop to include on your path and others may not. The decision which electives to take may depend on your particular interest in the subject, the type of practice you want to pursue, and how much of your curriculum you want to devote to this field of law. You can learn more about what these courses cover by reading the course descriptions, talking to the professor who teaches them or consulting one of the academic advising resources listed below.

Cross-Cutting/Highly Supportive Courses

Some courses could be said to be in a separate field or not strictly speaking a course in this field or preparing you for directly for practice in this area, but they are quite relevant for a significant number of practitioners in the field. The faculty and alumni practicing in this field who helped to develop this roadmap identified some courses as falling in this category. So beyond the more standard specialized electives, they designated some courses as highly supportive. Depending on your career goals, courses in this category may be as important as or more important than some of the specialized electives. If you don’t know which would be relevant, talk to an advisor to determine whether your interests tend towards a practice in which any of these would have relevance.

Skills & Clinics

Some skills courses teach skills that are of relevance to almost any litigation practice — for example trial practice and pretrial practice — and some courses teach skills that are common to almost any law practice — like legal research, legal drafting, interviewing, counseling and negotiation. The skills courses listed here were highlighted by the alumni practitioners and faculty with expertise in this area of law because the skills they teach are of particular relevance to a majority of practitioners in this field. In some cases, a listed course is designed to teach skills in the context of the substantive law of this field. Depending on your career interests and goals, there may be other basic skills and clinical experiences you want to pursue.

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.