Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

Jeffrey Davis

Emeritus Professor of Law

CV

SSRN

bepress (SelectedWorks)

Mailing Address:
Box #117625 Gainesville, FL 32611

Phone:
(352) 273-0956

About

Professor Davis has specialized in Contract, Commercial, and Bankruptcy law since 1973, publishing numerous articles on Consumer Credit, Bankruptcy, and Banking law. He taught at the University of South Dakota, Rutgers-Camden University, and New York University Law Schools before joining the University of Florida faculty in 1981. He is a member of the California, Florida, and American Bar Associations.  He is a past chair of the Bankruptcy/UCC Committee of the Business Section of the Florida Bar, and regularly serves on the Legislation Committee of the Executive Council of the Business Law Section.  From 1995 to 2001 he served as the Reporter for the Business Section’s Special Committee on Post-Judgment Creditors’ Remedies and was the principal drafter of the Florida Judgment Lien Statute.  In recent years he has received the Florida Law School Professor of the Year Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Business Law Section of the Florida Bar, and has written about Florida’s new Judgment Lien Statute, the use of the In Pari Delicto defense in bankruptcy cases, and the amendments to the Florida Assignment-for-the-Benefit-of-Creditors law, protection of charities from avoidance of donations as fraudulent conveyances, and the first steps taken by the United States and Australia to regulate the decision to grant consumer credit.

Education

LL.M., University of Michigan
J.D., Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
B.S., University of California, Los Angeles

Teaching & Scholarship

Contracts, Sales, Domestic and International Sales and Lease of Goods, Commercial Paper, Secured Transactions, Bankruptcy, Debtor-Creditor Relations, Banking Regulation

Publications

Articles

  • Regulating for the First Time the Decision to Grant Consumer Credit: A Look at the First Steps Taken by the United States and Australia, 26 U. Fla. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 131 (2015) [SSRN]
  • Choosing Among Innocents: Should Donations to Charities be Protected from Avoidance as Fraudulent Transfers, 22 U. Fla. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 407 (2012)
  • Florida’s Beefed-Up Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors as an Alternative to Bankruptcy, 19 U. Fla. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 17 (2008) [SSRN]
  • Ending the Nonsense: The In Pari Delicto Doctrine Has Nothing to do With What is 541 Property of the Bankruptcy Estate, 21 Emory Bankr. Dev. J. 519 (2005)
  • Fixing Florida’s Execution Lien Law Part Two: Florida’s New Judgment Lien on Personal Property, 54 Fla. L. Rev. 119 (2002)
  • Fixing Florida’s Execution Lien Law, 48 Fla. L. Rev. 658 (1996)

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.