Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

Lisa M. De Sanctis

Director of Legal Writing and Drafting
Senior Legal Skills Professor

Expertise

Intimate Partner Violence  • Legal Writing  • Trial and Appellate Advocacy  • 

About

Lisa De Sanctis is Director of Legal Writing and Drafting and a Senior Legal Skills Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. She teaches Legal Writing I and II, objective and persuasive writing, and is passionate about developing this indispensable skill set among future advocates and leaders of the profession. She also teaches Trial Practice, drawing on her litigation experience and her three years as an Associate Professor of Clinical Law at The George Washington University Law School. There she worked in the Domestic Violence Litigation Clinic, supervising and teaching all aspects of litigation, including client-centered interviewing, research and writing, negotiation, and trial advocacy. Professor De Sanctis has worked in academic and career development and has been involved with judicial clerkship efforts at both the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law and the University of Florida Levin College of Law. She also founded and operated an independent editing and advising business.

Professor De Sanctis litigated on behalf of the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office (VCDAO) in California, specializing in domestic violence. There she received the Outstanding Prosecutor of the Year Award for the Felony Domestic Violence Unit. She co-wrote legislation that became California Evidence Code 1109 and testified before the California Senate Committee on Criminal Procedure. Professor De Sanctis also prosecuted investment fraud in the Major Fraud Unit of the VCDAO and later worked in the private sector with Pillsbury Winthrop.

Professor De Sanctis is a member of the California and the District of Columbia bars and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (B.A. and J.D.), where she received the Outstanding Woman Law Graduate Award.

Education

J.D., University of California, Berkeley Law
B.A., University of California, Berkeley (highest honors)

Teaching and Scholarship

Legal Writing, Legal Pedagogy, Intimate Partner Violence, Evidence, Trial Practice

Courses

  • Legal Writing – Objective Writing
  • Legal Writing II – Persuasive Writing
  • Trial Practice

Publications

  • Holdings as Hypotheses: Teaching Contextual Understanding and Enhancing Engagement, 128 Penn. St. L. Rev. 489 (2024). [Link]
  • Bridging the Gap Between the Rules of Evidence and Justice for Victims of Domestic Violence, 8 Yale J.L. & Feminism 359 (1996). [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.