ABA Required Disclosures

The University of Florida Levin College of Law has been accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) since 1925. For more information on ABA accreditation, please contact:

Office of the Managing Director
ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar
321 North Clark Street, Floor 21
Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 312.988.6738
Fax: 312.988.5681
legaled@americanbar.org

The ABA requires that law schools disclose a variety of consumer information to current and prospective students. The Standard 509 Information Report, which is compiled from data submitted in the latest ABA annual questionnaire, contains much of this information.

Mandated disclosures – Standard 509(b)

The Standard 509 Information Report includes the following:

Admissions data
Tuition and fees, living costs, and financial aid
Conditional scholarship
Enrollment data, including academic, transfer, and other attrition
Numbers of full-time and part-time faculty, professional librarians, and administrators
Class sizes for first-year and upper-class courses; number of seminar, clinical and co-curricular offerings
Employment outcomes

Other required disclosures – Standards 509(c) and 509(d)

Refund of fees
Curricular offerings, academic calendar, and academic requirements:
- Academic calendar
- J.D. course offerings, requirements, and schedule
- LL.M. course offerings: U.S. Law, Taxation, International Tax; S.J.D.
Transfer of credit
- Articulation agreement: The College of Law does not have any articulation agreements with other institutions.
No scholarships offered by the College of Law are conditional on future academic performance other than that ordinarily required to remain in good academic standing.

Student Learning Outcomes

As prepared for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) university-wide accreditation process, the law school identified the following student learning outcomes for the J.D. program:

Students identify, describe and apply legal rules and principles as required to practice law and obtain licenses to practice law;
Students conduct independent legal research;
Students produce legal writing of professional quality;
Students apply laws and rules to different factual settings and engage in legal argumentation;
Students demonstrate knowledge of the shared values of the legal profession and ethical problem-solving and the skills to create a professional identity.

Additional information and elaboration on disclosures:

Admissions and financial aid
- Standards for admission
- Fall 2022 entering class profile
- Qualifications for admission to the bar: In addition to a bar examination, there are character, fitness, and other qualifications for admission to the bar in every U.S. jurisdiction. Applicants are encouraged to determine the requirements for any jurisdiction in which they intend to seek admission by contacting the jurisdiction. Addresses for all relevant agencies are available through the National Conference of Bar Examiners.
- Financial aid
Faculty and administration profiles
Employment statistics
Diversity

Any student who believes that the University of Florida Levin College of Law is out of compliance with any of the applicable ABA Standards may submit a written complaint to Associate Dean Rachel Inman in the Office of Student Affairs. All complaints will be handled within 14 class days. Any appeal should be filed with the Academic Standards Committee within five class days of the Associate Dean’s decision.

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.