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As U.S. – Cuba relations open, UF Law follows suit with University of Havana Law

The distance between Florida and Cuba is a short jaunt across the Gulf of Mexico as the crow flies, but until recently the aquatic divide may as well have been a brick wall for most Florida professors and students. That all changed earlier this year when President Barack Obama re-established diplomatic relations with our southern neighbors. Now, UF Law is taking the opportunity to expose students to a previously inaccessible trove of knowledge and opportunities.

An early and important step in this process took place last month, when University of Havana Law Professors Teresa Delgado Vergara and Marta Moreno Cruz spent the week of September 21 – 26 talking to students, meeting with faculty and exchanging ideas with the UF Law community.

Delgado specializes in civil law and Moreno specializes in intellectual property issues.

“It’s tremendously significant because it was the first Cuban professors who have visited us in over 50 years,” said Jon Mills, director of the Center for Governmental Responsibility. “They showed real interest in connecting with our faculty on a number of issues.”

Associate Dean for International Programs Lyrissa Lidsky said the visit was the first building block in a scholarly relationship that she hopes will eventually bear fruit. Establishing a dialogue with Cuban lawyers is critical moving forward as well.

“For lawyers in the state of Florida, there are going to be opportunities that will require an understanding of what’s going on in Cuba,” she said.  “(Law firms) will be looking for students who are sophisticated in their understanding so they can advance their law firms’ plans to do business in Cuba and business with Cuba.”

During their visit, the professors met with a number of UF Law faculty members, in multiple individual meetings and an open coffee time in the faculty lounge. They also had multiple opportunities to meet and interact with students, including visits to Professor Hernandez-Truyol’s Trade and Human Rights class and Center on Children and Families Director Shani King’s Family Law class.

“As a Cuban student, getting to meet and speak with such brilliant and esteemed Cuban professors as Professors Delgado Vergara and Moreno Cruz was a real honor,” said UF Law student Alexander Castro (2L). “I think they are incredibly brilliant and kind women, and are phenomenal scholars with whom to begin UF’s relationship with the University of Havana. I think I speak for my fellow students when I say that meeting them provided us with a very real perspective on how different the law and political culture is in Cuba; both institutions have much to share with one another and can help each other grow immensely.”

For the next step in this new exchange, a group of UF Law faculty members are planning to visit the University of Havana in early November.

Published: October 16th, 2015

Category: News

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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.