Teresa Drake

Senior Legal Skills Professor

Email:
drake@law.ufl.edu

Phone:
(352) 273-0805

Expertise

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) • Child Welfare • Intimate Partner Violence • Mindfulness in the Law • Trauma Informed Client Representation •

About

Teresa Drake has created three clinics at the Levin College of Law. In 2010, she co-founded the Intimate Partner Violence Assistance Clinic (IPVAC). This first-of-its-kind clinic introduced a new model of representation for survivors of intimate partner violence that included trauma responsive legal, mental health and case management components. In 2017 Professor Drake created the Immigration clinic utilizing the IPVAC model to provide immigrant survivors of violence with the opportunity for humanitarian relief through U-Visas and VAWA self-petitions. In Fall of 2022, Professor Drake transitioned IPVAC into the Gender Justice Clinic (GJC) which served low-income clients who face violence, discrimination or other oppression based on their actual or perceived sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

Before joining the Levin College of Law faculty, Professor Drake practiced law as a child welfare attorney and a former State of Florida prosecutor where she served as both the head of the domestic violence unit and a county court division chief. She has lectured nationally and internationally on topics of intimate partner violence, the effects of childhood trauma and resiliency building through mindfulness. She teaches these topics annually to all second-year medical students at the University of Florida College of Medicine.

Professor Drake earned her B.S. with highest honors from Drexel University and her J.D. degree with high honors from the University of Florida.

Education

B.S., Drexel University (highest honors);
J.D., University of Florida (High Honors, Order of Coif).

Courses

Civil Clinic: Gender Justice Clinic
Trial Practice

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.