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Florida Law Welcomes Three New Clinic Directors

The University of Florida Levin College of Law welcomes three new legal skills professors who will lead clinics at the law school.

Professor Juan Caballero joins the faculty as Legal Skills Professor and Director of the law school’s Immigration Clinic.

Professor Caballero comes to Florida Law from New York University School of Law, where he was an Acting Assistant Professor of Lawyering. Prior to teaching at NYU, Professor Caballero worked as a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. In this role, he worked with colleagues to litigate high-profile cases on a wide range of civil rights issues, including immigrant rights, prisoner rights, freedom of speech and expression, and voting rights. Previously, Professor Caballero served as a teaching fellow with the Michigan State University Immigration Law Clinic, where he and his students represented immigrants in litigation at the agency and federal court level.

Professor Caballero’s scholarship focuses on immigration and administrative law. He has published in the Loyola Law Journal and the NYU Journal of Law and Liberty. Professor Caballero’s current research focuses on the unique implications of courts’ application of Chevron deference in immigration cases.

Professor Caballero received his J.D. from New York University and his B.A. from Yale University.

Professor Donna Erez-Navot joins the faculty as Legal Skills Professor and Director of the law school’s Mediation Clinic.

Professor Erez-Navot previously directed the Mediation Clinic at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and served as Assistant Director of the Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution.

Before joining Cardozo, Professor Erez-Navot was the founding Director of the Mediation Clinic at University of Wisconsin Law School. In that role, she established the Waukesha County Child Protection Mediation Program, Dane County Small Claims Mediation Program, and Dane County Child Protection Mediation Pilot Program.

Before moving to Madison in 2009, Professor Erez-Navot served as a mediator in the Child Permanency Mediation Program in New York City Family Court, where she mediated issues surrounding placement of children in foster care, including relationships and communication between parties, custody/visitation/guardianship petitions, conditional surrenders, and other issues.

Professor Erez-Navot received her J.D. from Cardozo, where she was a member of the Cardozo Mediation Clinic. After earning her undergraduate degree at Emory University, Professor Erez-Navot studied Social Work at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Professor Derek Wheeler joins Florida Law as an entry-level Legal Skills Professor and Director of the law school’s new Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic.

Professor Wheeler most recently was a tax associate at Andreozzi Bluestein LLP in Clarence, New York. Before entering private practice, he worked for the Erie County Bar Association Volunteer Lawyers Project, where he served as the Qualified Tax Expert for their Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic. In that role, he represented clients in federal tax disputes and coordinated income tax outreach and educational activities throughout Western New York.

Professor Wheeler received his J.D. from Syracuse University, focusing his studies on tax law. He received his B.A. in Public Affairs from Wells College.

Published: July 20th, 2022

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.