Levin College of Law
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Annie Brett

Associate Professor of Law

CV

SSRN

Phone:
(352) 273-0682

Expertise

Administrative Law  • Artificial Intelligence  • Environmental Law  • International Environmental Law  • Ocean and Coastal Law & Policy  • Sustainability  • Technology  • Water Law  • 

About

Professor Annie Brett teaches and writes in the areas of environmental law, ocean and coastal law, and the intersection of law, science, and technology. Her scholarship focuses on how emerging technologies and information sources can be used to improve environmental management, as well as how novel environmental technologies should be regulated, specifically in the oceans. In addition to legal venues such as the California Law Review and Harvard Environmental Law Review, Professor Brett has also published in leading scientific outlets, including Nature. She works on international policy issues and has served on several committees for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, including as part of the U.S. National Committee to the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. She is a co-author of Oceans and Coastal Law, the leading casebook in the field.

Prior to joining the University of Florida Levin College of Law, Professor Brett worked on international ocean policy for Stanford University and the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. She is an accomplished mariner, having sailed extensively as a vessel captain around the world and she continues to participate in scientific and legal expeditions. Professor Brett received her AB from Harvard University, and JD and PhD from the University of Miami.

Education

J.D., University of Miami
Ph.D., University of Miami
A.B., Harvard University

Teaching and Scholarship

Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, Ocean and Coastal Law, Property, Sustainability, Technology & Artificial Intelligence, Water Law

Courses

  • Big Data and the Law
  • Oceans and Coastal Law
  • Property

Publications

Selected Publications

  • Information as Power: Democratizing Environmental Data, 2021 Utah L. Rev. (forthcoming).
  • How Performance Standards Could Support Innovation and Technology Compatible Fisheries Management Frameworks in the U.S., 131 Marine Policy 104631 (2021) (with M. Garren, F. Lewis, L. Sanchez & D. Spina).
  • Transboundary Waters, 44 Harvard Envtl. L. Rev. 473 (2020).
  • Ocean Data Need a Sea Change, 582 Nature 181 (8 June, 2020) (with Jim Leape and Mark Abbott). [Link]
  • Technology, Data and New Methods for Sustainably Managing Ocean Resources, World Resources Inst. (2020) (with Jim Leape, Mark Abbott, Hide Sakaguchi, Ling Cao, Kevin Chand, Yimnang Golbuu, Tara Martin, Juan Mayorga, and Mari S. Myksvoll). [Link]
  • Secrets of the Deep: Defining Privacy Underwater, 84 Mo. L. Rev. 47 (2019). [Link]
  • Ending Illegal Fishing: Data Policy and the Port State Measures Agreement, World Econ. For. (2019). [Link]
  • The Litigation of Exploration, 63 Villanova L. Rev. 241 (2018). [Link]

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.