Levin College of Law
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Pedro A. Malavet

Professor of Law

CV

SSRN

bepress (SelectedWorks)

Phone:
(352) 273-0974

Expertise

Civil Litigation & Procedure  • Comparative Law  • Critical Race Theory  • Evidence  • Puerto Rico  • Sovereignty  • U.S. Territorial Possessions  • 

About

Pedro A. Malavet joined the UF law faculty as an Assistant Professor of Law in the summer 1995. He has served as the school’s Associate Director and Director of the LL.M. in Comparative Law program from fall 2011 to spring 2016. During his time at UF Law, he has taught civil procedure, evidence and comparative law courses; seminars on the civil code and U.S. territorial possessions; and comparative procedure for J.D. students as well as Introduction to the Legal System of the United States for international LL.M. students. Professor Malavet’s early scholarship focused on comparative law, especially the civil code and notarial transactions. But most of his scholarship focuses on critical race theory and the legal treatment of Latinas/os in the United States “proper” as well as in its territorial possessions and on the intersections of race, culture and citizenship, especially how these affect the legal relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. Professor Malavet earned his J.D. magna cum laude and his LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Malavet has taught a seminar on the U.S. Territorial Possessions and participated in the College of Law’s summer programs in France and Costa Rica and has been a visiting exchange professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. He has also taught Introduction to U.S. Law to international practitioners at UF, in several Brazilian states and online in the MOOC, the Global Student’s Introduction to the Law of the United States that reached over 25,000 students online.

After graduating from Georgetown, Malavet clerked for the Honorable Raymond L. Acosta of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico from 1987 to 1989. He then worked as a junior partner at the litigation firm Bufete, Malavet & Ayoroa.

Professor Malavet also taught at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico Law School before returning to Georgetown in 1993 to complete a Master’s Degree in law. He was awarded the Future Law Professor Fellowship, which allowed him to study, co-teach a course with a member of the Georgetown faculty and develop a scholarly article. He completed his fellowship and LL.M. degree in 1994. During the 2004-05 academic year, Professor Malavet was a visiting professor at Seattle University School of Law.

From 2007 to 2009, Professor Malavet served on the Membership Review Committee of the Association of American Law Schools which “examines law school applications for membership in the Association and sabbatical evaluation reports of member law schools” and makes recommendations to the Executive Committee regarding suggested actions. The AALS works with the American Bar Association during its re-accreditation process and Malavet has served on both AALS membership and joint ABA-AALS sabbatical site-visit re-accreditation teams.

Education

LL.M., Georgetown University
J.D., Georgetown University (magna cum laude)
B.B.A., Emory University

Teaching and Scholarship

  • Teaching: Civil Procedure, Comparative Law, Civil Code Institutions Seminar, Evidence, Introduction to Law, U.S. Territorial Possessions Seminar. Also active in several international programs.
  • Research and Scholarship: Comparative Law (principally the Civil Code and Notarial Law), Critical Race Theory, LatCrit Theory, U.S. Territorial Possessions, Evidence, Civil Procedure.

Courses

  • Comparative Law
  • Evidence
  • Latin@s and the Law

Publications

Articles

  • “Counsel for the Situation: The Latin Notary, a Historical and Comparative Model,” 19 Hastings Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 389-488 (1996). [SSRN]
  • “The Non-Adversarial, Extra-Judicial Search For Legality And Truth: Foreign Notarial Transactions As An Inexpensive And Reliable Model For A Market-Driven System Of Informed Contracting And Fact-Determination,” 16 Wisc. Int’l L.J. 1-60 (1997). [SSRN]
  • “The Foreign Notarial Legal Services Monopoly: Why Should We Care?,” 31 J. Marshall L. Rev. 945-970 (1998). [SSRN]
  • “Literature and Arts as Antisubordination Praxis LatCrit Theory and Cultural Production: The Confessions of an Accidental Crit,” 33 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1293-1331 (2000). [SSRN]
  • “Puerto Rico: Cultural Nation, American Colony,” 6 Mich. J. Race & L. 1-106 (2001). [SSRN]
  • “The Accidental Crit II: Culture and the Looking Glass of Exile,” 78 Denv. U. L. Rev. 753-793 (2002). [SSRN]
  • “Reparations Theory and Postcolonial Puerto Rico: Some Preliminary Thoughts,” 13 La Raza L.J. 387-423 (2002). [SSRN]
  • “Introduction: LatCritical Encounters with Culture, In North-South Frameworks,” 51 Fla. L. Rev. 1-39 (2003). [SSRN]
  • “Afterword: Outsider Citizenships and Multidimensional Borders: The Power and Danger of Not Belonging,” 52 Clev. St. L. Rev. 321-338 (2005). [SSRN]
  • “The Inconvenience of a ‘Constitution [that] follows the flag … but doesn’t quite catch up with it’: FromDownes v. Bidwell to Boumediene v. Bush,” 80 Miss. L.J. 181 (Fall 2010). [SSRN]
  • “Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Civil Code and the Problem of Transculturation,” 29 Florida Journal of International Law 197 (Fall 2017), Cuba, Puerto Rico, el Código Civil y el Problema de la Transculturación, 29 Fla. J. Int’l L. 197-S (Spanish) (Otoño 2017). [SSRN]

Book Chapter

  • “The Story of Downes v. Bidwell: ‘The Constitution Follows the Flag … But Doesn’t Quite Catch up With It,'” in Race and the Law Stories (Rachel Moran and Devon Carbado, eds., Foundation Press, 2008). [SSRN]

Book

  • America’s Colony: The Political and Cultural Conflict between the U.S. and Puerto Rico (NYU Press 2004) (paperback edition 2007).

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.