Levin College of Law

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University of Florida Levin College of Law
Established 1909
School type Public
President Dean Robert Jerry
Location Gainesville, Florida, USA
Enrollment 1,153 (approx.)
Faculty 128 (approx.)
USNWR ranking Tier 1
Bar pass rate 81% (Jul 04), 77% (Feb 05)
Annual tuition $7786 (Florida resident), $27,419 (Non-resident)
Homepage www.law.ufl.edu


The Fredric G. Levin College of Law is the law school of the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] History of Law School

The College of Law was founded in 1909 and was originally housed in Thomas Hall and Bryan Hall. The college became desegregated on September 15, 1958, and its faculty became desegregated shortly thereafter. In 1969 it moved to its current location in Holland Hall on the northwest section of the UF campus. In 1984, a second building, Bruton-Geer Hall was added to the law school.

The College of Law was renamed the Levin College of Law in 1999 after prominent Pensacola trial lawyer and UF law school alumni (class of 1961) Fredric G. Levin donated $10 million to the school–a sum that was matched by $10 million from the state of Florida, creating a $20 million endowment. (Levin was also noted for bringing a class-action lawsuit against the tobacco industry in the 1990s).

The law school underwent a major renovation between 2004 and 2005, creating new academic space and greatly expanding the law library, which is dedicated as the "Lawton Chiles Legal Information Center", named after Lawton Chiles, former Florida Governor and US Senator who graduated from the law school in 1955 and was employed by the law library during his time at the college. The Legal Information Center is one of the three largest law libraries in the southeast.

[edit] Dedication of New Facilities

On September 9, 2005, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor spoke at the dedication of the renovated facilities.

In September 2006, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg visited the College of Law in to speak and to dedicate a classroom in honor of her friend and UF Law alumni Chesterfield Smith.

[edit] Future Plans

Construction is scheduled to begin on a new courtroom facility in May 2007, with expected opening in fall 2008. The facility will be two stories tall and include a fully functional trial and appellate court. The new courtroom is designed to incorporate new technology to allow students to understand the role of technology in modern practice.

[edit] Academics

The College of Law offers a three-year, full-time program leading to a Juris Doctor degree. It also has several graduate law programs, including an LL.M-SJD degree program in tax law and LL.M. programs in international taxation, and comparative law.

[edit] JD Program

In 2008, U.S. News and World Report ranked the law school's JD program as #47 in the United States. The College of Law's ranking dropped from #41 in 2007. The Dean of the law school characterized the drop as predictable, temporary, and due to a statistical computation based on figures that do not accurately reflect the size of the student body [1].

The College offers admission in the fall semester (spring admissions were discontinued in 2006). Its entering class has a median GPA of a 3.6 and median LSAT score of a 159. It admits 26.4 percent of applicants. [2]. Admissions are granted for the fall semester only - spring admissions have been abolished.

Required first-year courses are Torts, Professional Responsibility, Criminal Law, Contracts, Legal Research and Writing, Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure, Property, and Appellate Advocacy. Students are also required to take Legal Drafting prior to graduation. It is recommended, though not required, that students also take Evidence, Estates and Trusts, Corporations, and Trial Practice.

Students can choose to pursue their J.D. in conjunction with another graduate degree, including a master's degree, Ph.D, or M.D. in one of the university's 33 joint-degree programs. Students can also complete specific requirements in addition to those required for the JD and recieve a certificate showing specialization in estate planning and trusts, family law, intellectual property law, environmental and Land Use Law, or International and Comparative Law.

[edit] Graduate Law Programs

In 2006, U.S. News and World Report ranked the law school's LLM tax program as #2 in the United States. The program offers one-year courses of study leading to the degree of LL.M. in Taxation or LL.M. in International Taxation. Nearly all students in the LL.M. in Taxation program are graduates of American law schools. The LL.M. in International Taxation Program is open to graduates of U.S. and foreign law schools. In a typical year, about 90 students are enrolled in the tax LLM programs. The College of Law also offers a doctoral degree (J.S.D.) in taxation. Nearly all courses in the program are taught by full-time faculty. The College has more full-time tax professors than any other law school in the United States. The faculty includes several of the most distinguished tax law professors in the country. The faculty and students of the graduate tax programs edit and publish the Florida Tax Review.

The college's comparative law program is offered to graduates of foreign law schools who seek to increase their understanding of the U.S. legal system.

[edit] Centers and Institutes

The College of Law is home to a number of institutes including the Center for Governmental Responsibility, the Center for Race and Race Relations, and the Elder Law Center.

[edit] Student organizations and co-curricular activities

The College of Law has over 40 active student organizations. There are many groups which focus their activities on a specific area of law, such as criminal law, military law, business law and public interest law. There is a broad array of organizations whose focus is on political and social issues, such as the Law School Democrats, Law School Republicans, the Federalist Society, the Law School Independents, and the National Lawyers Guild. Other organizations, like Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) allow law students to use their legal skills to help the community. Other groups seek to provide an organization for students who share a common background, such as the Black Law Students Association, the Christian Legal Society, Lambda Legal, Law Association for Women, and the Spanish-American Law Students Association.

The college has three moot court teams: the Justice Campbell Thornal Moot Court Team, which competes in state, national, and intramural competitions; the International Commercial Arbitration Moot Court Team, which deals with arbitration and competes nationally and internationally; and the Jessup Moot Court Team, which deals with international law.

The College of Law has a trial team, which competes nationally.

The College of Law publishes five law reviews: the Florida Law Review, the Florida Journal of International Law, the University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Journal of Technology Law and Policy, and the Entertainment Law Review.

The John Marshall Bar Association or JMBA (pronounced Jum-Buh) is the student bar association at the college. Membership is optional. It intermittently publishes a newsletter called "The Docket" which is edited by an Italian young man named Fransisco Ferreiro.

[edit] Aesthetics

The architectural style of Bruton-Geer Hall, completed in 1984, is best classified as brutalism, as concrete features prominently in its design. The renovation of Holland Hall was completed in 2005 at the cost of $25 million and features brick and concrete.

Major donors & various others to the law school have classrooms and library study rooms named in their honor with plaques outside the doors of these classrooms bearing their names.

The grounds of the College of Law contain several pieces of artwork. The newest additions, added in 2005, were two metal sculptures created by Jim Cole from the Rhode Island School of Design–The Legislative and The Executive. The third installment, The Judiciary, arrived in 2006. These sculptures also function as benches. The lobby of the law school library contains a sculpture made by Mr. Cole in the form of a chair - it is called "The Lobbyist." Also contained on the grounds of the college are a series of large, intertwined metal rings, which have the appearance of being partially underground. They are known as "the Cheerios."

[edit] Prominent Alumni

[edit] Attorneys

  • Fred Levin (prominent plaintiff's lawyer well known for tobacco litigation, namesake of the law school)

[edit] Politicians

[edit] Judges

  • Susan Black (United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit)
  • Rosemary Barkett (United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit)
  • Peter T. Fay (United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit)
  • Stephen Mickle (United States District Judge, Northern District of Florida)
  • John Richard Smoak, Jr. (United States District Judge, Northern District of Florida)
  • William Terrell Hodges (United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida)
  • Steven D. Merryday (United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida)
  • Anne Conway (United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida)
  • Ralph Wilson Nimmons, Jr. (United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida)
  • Steven Douglas Merryday (United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida)
  • Patricia C. Fawsett (United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida)
  • James S. Moody, Jr. (United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida)
  • Howell W. Melton (United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida)
  • Ben Krentzman (United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida)
  • George C. Young (United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida)
  • William J. Castagna (United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida)
  • James Lawrence King (United States District Judge, Southern District of Florida)
  • C. Clyde Atkins (United States District Judge, Southern District of Florida)
  • Edward B. Davis (United States District Judge, Southern District of Florida)
  • Ursula Mancusi Ungaro-Benages (United States District Judge, Southern District of Florida)
  • Jose A. Gonzalez, Jr. (United States District Judge, Southern District of Florida)
  • Sidney M. Aronovitz (United States District Judge, Southern District of Florida)
  • James W. Kehoe (United States District Judge, Southern District of Florida)
  • Seventeen graduates have served on the Florida Supreme Court, 15 of them as Chief Justice

[edit] Bar Association Presidents

  • In the past 40 years, four presidents of the American Bar Association were graduates of the college, more than any other law school for that time period.
  • Since 1950, some 60 percent of Florida Bar Association presidents were graduates of the college.

[edit] External links

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