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UF Law Receives Record-Breaking $20 Million Commitment for Health Law Program

The University of Florida Levin College of Law is proud to announce a transformational gift of $20 million from alumnus Richard P. Cole (JD 74). The gift will endow a program in Health Law, supporting cutting-edge teaching, scholarship, and advocacy.

Cole’s bequest is the largest individual contribution to UF Law in its history and one of the largest to any law school in the country. The gift will honor Richard Cole’s late father, Robert B. Cole, who graduated from UF’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1932 and UF Law in 1935 and served as the founding chairman of Baptist Health of South Florida until his death. Richard Cole’s bequest continues the legacy of the Robert B. Cole Health Law Endowment, which was created at UF Law in 1995 with the purpose of supporting teaching, programs, research and publications in the area of health law.

“Richard’s incredible generosity will enable UF Law to assume a leadership role in Health Law,” said Laura Rosenbury, Dean and Levin, Mabie & Levin Professor of Law. “With Richard’s support, we will build upon our existing faculty strengths and better leverage the many opportunities within a major research institution in the third largest state of the nation.”

UF President Kent Fuchs emphasized that Cole’s gift moves UF one step closer to being a top 5 public research institution.

“Gifts of this magnitude make a significant difference in our progress toward our highest goals as a university,” President Fuchs said. “Health law is a critical field today, and this gift will make it possible for our faculty and students to accomplish a marvelous amount of good.”

The endowment will support a Chair and a Professorship in Health Law; a Health Law area of concentration in the J.D. curriculum; merit scholarships for highly credentialed incoming students interested in the study of Health Law; and an annual symposium bringing together legal and medical communities, government agencies, non-profit organizations, faculty, and law students to explore contemporary and complex health law issues.

“This investment in our future will support generations of students who will come from around the world to study Health Law at the University of Florida,” said Dean Rosenbury.

Cole is Managing Partner of Cole, Scott & Kissane in Miami, Florida, which is the largest Florida-based law firm with more than 400 attorneys in eleven locations. He is recognized as a leader in the areas of personal injury defense and medical, legal, and professional malpractice. Cole has served as President of the Dade County Bar Association and recently received Lifetime Membership in America’s Top 100 Attorneys.

UF Law is known for its commitment to academic excellence, the breadth of its faculty scholarship, robust experiential learning opportunities, a diverse and highly credentialed student body, and its global and engaged alumni base. Cole’s transformational gift will ensure that UF Law remains one of the nation’s leading law schools.

Published: February 7th, 2019

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.