Contact Frank Klim
Communications Office
727-562-7889
Stetson Hispanic Bar Association honored for work with national mentoring program
Contact Brandi Palmer
Communications Specialist
727-562-7381
Gulfport, Fla. – Stetson University College of Law’s Hispanic Bar Association was recently honored for its work with the Hispanic National Bar Association’s minority youth outreach and mentoring programs.
The HNBA received the American Bar Association’s 2007 Partnership Award for its National Mentoring Program and its Youth Convention Law Day Program on Aug. 10 at the joint annual meeting of the National Conference of Bar Presidents, National Association of Bar Executives and the National Conference of Bar Foundations in San Francisco, Calif.
Stetson’s HBA partners with the Tampa Bay Hispanic Bar Association, pairing law students with practicing attorney-mentors to encourage professional development. The Tampa Bay mentor program was launched in Tampa, Fla., this February.
“Stetson’s HBA is honored to be part of the HNBA’s mentoring program and will continue its efforts in uniting more law students with practitioners,” said Stetson HBA president Clara Rodriguez Rokusek. “Attorney-mentors have provided students with vital information regarding particular fields of law, career advancement and networking.”
The local mentor program is sponsored by national, state and local Hispanic bar associations, foundations and firms.
The Hispanic National Bar Association launched its national mentoring program in 2006. It has programs in Miami, New York, Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area and Tampa. The HNBA mentorship program was created to fulfill the need for mentors from aspiring Hispanic students and new lawyers. The Hispanic National Bar Association represents the interests of 38,000 U.S. Hispanic lawyers, law school professors, law students and paralegals.
Stetson Law also was honored with the American Bar Association Law Student Division Award of Excellence Aug. 10 in San Francisco. Stetson student Chris Sprowls was elected to national office as division delegate for the American Bar Association House of Delegates, and recent Stetson graduate Brian Redar completed his term as student representative for the ABA Board of Governors.
Florida DCF appoints Stetson Law professor to chair advisory panel on adult protection system
Contact Brandi Palmer
Communications Specialist
727-562-7381
Stetson Law receives ABA Law Student Division Award of Excellence
Contact Brandi Palmer
Communications Specialist
727-562-7381
Gulfport, Fla. – Stetson University College of Law was awarded the American Bar Association Law Student Division Award of Excellence at a special ceremony Aug. 10 in San Francisco, Calif. Stetson has received the recognition twice in the past three years.
“Every student member on campus should feel responsible for helping bring this award home to Stetson again,” said Michael Farley, assistant dean of student life at Stetson.
A delegation of Stetson students, including Louis Brown, Michael Davis, Davina Eads, Annessa Kalloo, Allison Markee, Shanda Moyers, Chris Sprowls and Callie Weed, traveled to the annual meeting of the ABA Law Student Division to accept the award.
Farley credited Stetson student involvement with the ABA and Student Bar Association, along with the outstanding student leadership of ABA Representative Melody James and former president of the SBA, Tracey Sticco. Both James and Sticco are recent Stetson Law graduates.
Also at the meeting, Stetson student Chris Sprowls was elected to national office as division delegate for the American Bar Association House of Delegates, and recent Stetson graduate Brian Redar completed his term as student representative for the ABA Board of Governors.
Legal writing scholar joins Stetson Law in fall 2007
Contact Brandi Palmer
Communications Specialist
727-562-7381
Gulfport, Fla. – Kirsten K. Davis joins Stetson University College of Law in August as an associate professor of law and director of its nationally recognized legal research and writing program.
Professor Davis taught for seven years in the legal research and writing program at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. During that time, Davis taught a variety of legal writing courses, including the first-year legal research and writing course, Advanced Legal Writing, Fundamentals of Legal Drafting and Scholarly Legal Writing. She was acting director of the program in 2004-2005.
Davis’ scholarship explores the connection between law and rhetoric; investigates ways to improve the practice and teaching of legal method, analysis, and writing; and examines the ways that legal language communicates about the relationship between work and family. Her work appears in scholarly journals as well as in magazines directed toward practicing members of the bar association. She also has presented her research interests at numerous conferences and seminars.
Davis grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Southeastern Ohio. She received a law degree summa cum laude from The Michael E. Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University in 1995. She was a law clerk for the Honorable Frederick P. Stamp Jr., judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in human communication at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University.
Stetson Law awards inaugural Edward D. Foreman Scholarship
Contact Brandi Palmer
Communications Specialist
727-562-7381
Gulfport, Fla. – Sanford, Fla., resident Chantel Wonder can be classified as an academic overachiever. Still, she says it came as a surprise to learn that she had been selected to receive a full scholarship to Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Fla. Wonder is the inaugural recipient of the Edward D. Foreman Scholarship, the largest scholarship available to full-time students at Stetson Law. She begins classes this week. The scholarship funds tuition and fees, as well as the cost of books and bar preparation courses.
The new Stetson Law scholarship rewards outstanding academic merit and leadership. Wonder was on Stetson University’s Dean’s List and The National Dean’s List for all four years of her undergraduate career. A member of the National Scholars Honor Society and the Stetson University Honors Program, the philosophy major spent the fall of her junior year studying at the University of Oxford in England. She became a member of the Oxford Law Society and later did a summer internship in a law office.
Wonder, who has traveled extensively, aspires to a career in international diplomacy after completing her studies at Stetson Law. She hopes to return to Oxford to obtain a Master of Laws in human rights after finishing her law degree at Stetson Law in Gulfport.
“I know where my interest is —in human rights,” Wonder says with enthusiasm. She worked on a research project on nonviolent resistance to wars while scouting for a summer job before starting law school in August.
The Foreman scholarship was established by Bonnie Foreman in honor of her late husband, Edward D. Foreman, a criminal defense attorney known for his honesty, generosity and commitment to excellence. Foreman received his bachelor’s degree from Stetson University in DeLand in 1967 and his law degree from Stetson in Gulfport in 1971.
“It is Mrs. Foreman’s hope that the recipient of this scholarship will make it a personal priority to serve people in need and demonstrate the importance of ‘paying it forward’ during one’s lifetime,” said Karen Griffin, director of development at Stetson.
Stetson Law dean to lead American Red Cross Tampa Bay Chapter
Contact Frank Klim
Executive Director of Communications
727-562-7398
Gulfport, Fla. – The Tampa Bay Chapter of the American Red Cross elected Stetson University College of Law Vice President and Dean Darby Dickerson to serve as Chair of the Board of Directors effective as of July 1.
“The American Red Cross serves a vital function in the Tampa Bay community, and it is my honor to lead an organization that is such an invaluable community resource,” Dean Dickerson said. In her new role, Dickerson will guide the Tampa Bay Chapter’s volunteer board of directors, composed of civic-minded community and corporate leaders. Dickerson also serves on the board of the Tampa Chamber of Commerce. In 2005, she was named the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s Business Woman of the Year in the Nonprofit/Social Services category.
Dickerson also is a nationally recognized legal scholar. She is the author of ALWD Citation Manual: A Professional Citation System, and numerous articles on higher education law and policy, legal citation and litigation ethics.
Dickerson succeeds Stetson Law alumna Linda D. Hartley as Chair of the chapter.
The American Red Cross of Tampa Bay provides numerous, community services, including disaster relief and education, emergency services, HIV and AIDS education, hospital volunteer and youth programs.
The chapter serves in excess of 2.6 million residents in Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties, with locations in Brandon, Clearwater, Hudson, MacDill Air Force Base, St. Petersburg and Tampa.
Stetson graduate and minority role model clerks at International Criminal Court in The Hague
Contact Brandi Palmer
Communications Specialist
727-562-7381
Gulfport, Fla. – Stetson University College of Law graduate and minority role model Emy Mondesir has been selected for a judicial clerkship at the International Criminal Court in The Hague this July.
Mondesir, who graduated in December 2006 from Stetson Law with a concentration in international law, will clerk this summer in what is arguably the legal capital of the world.
As a student, Mondesir received the Carlton Fields Diversity Fellowship and was a Student Bar Association class representative. While pursuing her law degree at Stetson, she studied at The Hague during Stetson’s Summer Institute in International and Comparative Law, which travels every year to Germany and the Netherlands.
“Stetson’s presence at The Hague through the summer abroad program has enhanced our profile as a leading American law school and has helped make the ICC familiar with Stetson University College of Law,” said professor Dorothea Beane, an international criminal law and human rights expert who founded Stetson’s summer abroad program in The Hague.
Home to more than 150 international legal organizations, including the International Criminal Court, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice, The Hague was founded in 1899 during the world’s first Peace Conference as the “international city of peace and justice” in the Netherlands.
The ICC, established in 2002 as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression, has the power to prosecute crimes committed on or after July 1, 2002, when the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court entered into force.
Stetson’s summer abroad programs for enrolled students include courses in Granada, Spain; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Freiburg, Germany and The Hague, Netherlands and Tianjin, China. Starting in the fall of 2007, Stetson will add semester and year-long foreign exchange programs in Spain and Mexico.
For more information about international law programs at Stetson, please contact the Office of Graduate and International Programs at [email protected] or visit Stetson on the web at http://www.law.stetson.edu/international.
Stetson’s student life office is growing
Contact Brandi Palmer
Communications Specialist
727-562-7381
Gulfport, Fla. – Stetson University College of Law has promoted Michael Farley to assistant dean of student life. Stetson has hired Nicole Snelling as associate director and Morgan Battrell as assistant director of the department.
Farley joined the law school in 2005 as associate director of student life. Before coming to Stetson, he was assistant dean of student services at the University of Florida, director of alumni services at Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity headquarters and coordinator of student affairs at the University of South Florida.
Nicole Snelling, a native of Kentucky who received her law degree from the University of Arkansas and her Master of Laws in international law from Stetson, is the new associate director of student life.
Morgan Battrell, also a native of Kentucky, received his master’s degree in higher education administration from the University of South Florida.
Aldon Knight joins Stetson Law as associate vice president for college relations
Contact Brandi Palmer
Communications Specialist
727-562-7381
Gulfport, Fla. – Aldon Knight is the new associate vice president for college relations at Stetson University College of Law.
In his new role at Stetson, Knight is responsible for fundraising efforts and alumni relations for the law school. Knight has worked in the field of fundraising for 16 years.
He replaces former Associate Vice President Dotti Bressi, who died in July 2006 following a battle with leukemia.
Knight was the former director of development for the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tenn. He has managed alumni affairs, annual funds and major gift programs, and directed successful capital campaigns at three institutions.
Knight received his Master of Public Administration degree from the University of South Carolina/Clemson University in 1997.
Stetson creates new institute to build relationships with Caribbean legal community
Contact Brandi Palmer
Communications Specialist
727-562-7381
Gulfport, Fla. – Stetson University College of Law has created the Institute on Caribbean Law and Policy to foster academic, scholarly and professional exchanges with the Caribbean legal community.
Stetson professors Dorothea Beane and Darryl Wilson will co-direct the new institute.
Stetson created the new institute to help build meaningful partnerships with law schools and professional legal organizations throughout the Caribbean, including the Caribbean Council on Legal Education and the Caribbean bar associations.
The institute’s mission is to provide a scholarly, professional foundation that will help coordinate beneficial activities for law students, faculty and the bar associations in the U.S. and throughout the Caribbean. The institute also will seek to develop new programs for law students at Stetson and at Caribbean law schools.
Planned activities include educational exchanges, training, development, certifications and employment opportunities. Stetson also is planning to offer a two-week intersession program each January in the Caribbean.
The institute will oversee Stetson’s participation in the American Caribbean Law Initiative, a consortium of schools from the U.S. and the West Indies that Stetson hosted in the fall of 2007. Both Beane and Wilson are board members of the American Caribbean Law Initiative.
Stetson Law names military law scholar new advocacy center director
Contact Brandi Palmer
Communications Specialist
727-562-7381
Gulfport, Fla. – Professor Charles H. Rose, military law scholar and former judge’s advocate, has been named as the new director of Stetson University College of Law’s nationally recognized Center for Excellence in Advocacy.
Rose’s new duties include sponsoring national advocacy programs for attorneys, law professors and law students, and coordinating the activities of Stetson’s award-winning advocacy competition teams.
Rose, a former U.S. Army major, teaches professionalism, trial advocacy, criminal procedure and evidence. He is the author of Fundamental Trial Advocacy and a co-author of Military Crimes and Defenses and Fundamental Pretrial Advocacy.
Rose, who previously served as the center’s associate director, replaces professor Roberta Kemp Flowers, who holds the Wm. Reece Smith Distinguished Professorship and has served as the center’s director since 2000.
Professor Flowers, who teaches trial advocacy, evidence and criminal procedure at Stetson, will focus on a variety of professionalism and student leadership projects.