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UF Law’s Semester in Practice Program Earns Florida Bar Group Professionalism Award

UF Law Dean Laura Rosenbury and UF Law alum Nate Harvey (JD 18) accept The Florida Bar’s Group Professionalism Award from Past President Michael Higer at The Florida Bar annual meeting on June 14, 2018. 

UF Law’s Semester in Practice program has earned the 2018 Group Professionalism Award from The Florida Bar’s Standing Committee on Professionalism. UF Law Dean Laura A. Rosenbury accepted the award at the bar’s annual meeting in Orlando on June 14 alongside UF Law alum Nate Harvey (JD 18), who enrolled in the Semester in Practice program this past spring.

The honor has been given annually since 1994 to a program that is enhancing professionalism among law students and lawyers. Past recipients include judicial organizations, inns of court, law schools and local bar associations. This is the first year that UF Law has received the award.

UF Law launched the Semester in Practice program in 2016 to provide more experiential learning opportunities and to foster professional identity by exposing students to practicing attorneys, live clients and real legal matters.

“This program gives students the opportunity to see how lawyers manage ethical concerns, function in their professional roles, and navigate various substantive and procedural demands of practicing law,” Dean Rosenbury wrote in a recommendation letter to the bar.

Harvey, who spent the spring semester at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Orlando, praised the program for enhancing his legal education and providing valuable connections with leaders in the legal profession.

“The program added a new dimension to my legal education,” Harvey said. “The legal market is so competitive. We can’t really rely on the traditional way that law school has operated – you have to be able to apply these concepts in the real world.”

Nate Harvey (JD 18), Dean Laura Rosenbury, and Florida Bar Professionalism Center Director Rebecca Bandy at The Florida Bar annual meeting on June 14, 2018.

“The Semester in Practice program has sent an increasing number of our 3L students into the workplace, helping them develop their professional identities through closely supervised assignments,” wrote Dean Rosenbury. “Indeed, 20 percent of our 3L class is currently enrolled in the program, which has professional identity formation as its centerpiece.”

The program has also enhanced connections among the Gator Law Nation through networking and mentoring opportunities.

“Gators want to hire Gators,” Harvey said. “It’s such a strong program because it allows us to make those connections with alumni that we would not otherwise have. It puts students closer to other alumni. Alumni make the effort to get to know you or take you to lunch. At the end of the day, Gator Law alumni have a strong passion for the school.”

Harvey says the program sets UF Law apart from other law schools.

“It’s nice to get the insider’s perspective,” he said. “Through this program, we can learn what it’s like to actually practice law in a professional setting.”

 

Published: June 20th, 2018

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.