Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

Robert B. Moberly

Emeritus Professor of Law & Trustee Research Fellow
Emeritus Director, Institute of Dispute Resolution

Phone:
(352)392-2045

About

Education

B.S., J.D., University of Wisconsin

Teaching and Scholarship

Labor Law, Negotiation, Mediation, Collective Bargaining & Arbitration

 

Professor Moberly earned his B.S. in economics and J.D. from the University of Wisconsin. After law school he clerked on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He then practiced labor law in government and private practice prior to entering the law teaching profession. His primary teaching subjects were labor law, labor arbitration, and alternative dispute resolution. He is founding Director of the Law School’s Institute for Dispute Resolution.

Other appointments include visiting professorships at the University of Illinois; the University of Louvain, Belgium; and the Polish Academy of Sciences. He also lectured at numerous international venues, including several Polish law schools; the Hong Kong High Court; and the International Labor Organization in Geneva Switzerland.

Professor Moberly authored 40 publications in the areas of arbitration, labor law, and conflict resolution. His work includes two books: Arbitration & Conflict Resolution (w/ E. Teple), published by BNA and adopted at Harvard, Cornell and other universities, and Public Employment Labor Relations (w/ C. Mulcahy). Other publications include law review articles in Cornell, Florida, Illinois, Washington, and Wisconsin, as well as scholarly journals such as the Journal of Legal Education. He was honored by the National Center for Public Resources for Outstanding Alternative Dispute Resolution Scholarship. He has received grants from the U.S. Departments of Labor and Agriculture, as well as other granting entities.

Professor Moberly chaired the Labor Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution Sections of the Association of American Law Schools. He served on the executive board of the Labor Law Group Trust and the U.S. Branch of the International Society for Labor Law & Social Security. While a member of the Florida Supreme Court Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution, he served as principal drafter of mediator ethical standards for the state of Florida.

Professor Moberly is a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators, where he served as Vice President, Executive Committee member, and Chair of the Southeast region. He was on arbitration panels of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the American Arbitration Association, and the National Mediation Board. He served as a special magistrate for the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission, and on permanent arbitration panels for numerous employers and unions.

He is a Fellow of The College of Labor and Employment Lawyers; a life member of the Labor & Employment Relations Association; a charter member of the Association for Conflict Resolution; and a member of the American and Wisconsin Bar Associations, as well as a faculty affiliate of the Florida Bar Association.

Following Professor Moberly’s UF retirement, he became Dean and Professor at the University of Arkansas law school. He retired after 17 years on the UA faculty and now resides in Florida with his wife Lynne Webb.

University of Florida Levin College of Law
309 Village Drive
PO Box 117620
Gainesville, FL 32611
(352) 273-0804
Text-Only Version

Tools

Website

Quick Links

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.