The Stetson University College of Law team of Elise Engle, LaMark McGreen, Grace Samarkos and Megan Tiralosi won the Chester Bedell Mock Trial Competition on Jan. 23-25 in Tampa, Florida. This year, Stetson won the competition for the 23rd time in 37 years. A Stetson team won the inaugural Chester Bedell competition in 1983.
The Trial Lawyers Section of the Florida Bar conducts the prestigious competition for mock trial teams from across the state annually, and the final round of competition is presided over by distinguished members of the judiciary.
“Stetson has historically set the bar high for excellence in trial advocacy,” said Professor of Excellence in Trial Advocacy Charles Rose. “Our legacy of success with the Chester Bedell competition is a point of pride for our students and alumni.”
Samarkos, a member of this year’s award-winning team, is the daughter of Charles Samarkos J.D. ’89, who won the Chester Bedell competition when he was a student at Stetson.
Stetson Law 2016 alumni Brandon and Lara Breslow co-coached the team.
A second Stetson team of JD Arnett, Olivia Bergert, Blake Fromang and Justine Roof made it to the semi-final round.
Fromang is the son of Stetson Law alumna Jennifer Eden J.D. ’90, who won Chester Bedell several times when she was a student.
Stetson’s program in trial advocacy is nationally ranked no. 1 by U.S. News & World Report. To learn more about the advocacy program, visit stetson.edu/law/advocacy.
(L-R): Professor Deborah Weissman and Richard C. Woltmann.
Stetson University College of Law’s annual Inns of Court Banquet on Jan. 24 in St. Petersburg honored Bay Area Legal Services pioneer Richard C. Woltmann with the Wm. Reece Smith Jr. Public Service Award. Stetson established the Wm. Reece Smith Jr. Award in 1990 to honor outstanding contributions to public service, the justice system, and the community.
Woltmann established the elder law programs at Bay Area Legal Services in 1976, becoming chief executive officer/president of the organization in 1980. Prior to joining Bay Area Legal Services, he served for three years in the Peace Corps in West Africa and for one year as a VISTA lawyer in Washington State.
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law Deborah Weissman presented the Wm. Reece Smith Jr. Distinguished Lecture. Professor Weissman’s teaching and scholarship focuses on human rights, immigration and immigration rights, gender violence, and the lawyer as public citizen.
Stetson’s Wm. Reece Smith Jr. award and lecture honor the late Wm. Reece Smith Jr., a champion for justice and national leader in the legal aid movement. Smith is a member of the Stetson Law Hall of Fame, the namesake of Stetson’s Tampa Law Center Wm. Reece Smith Jr. Courtroom, and was a longtime member of both the Stetson Law Board of Overseers and Stetson University Board of Trustees.
The Inns of Court banquet, with roots in the English mentoring program for barristers, presents Stetson Law students with an opportunity to interact with prominent lawyers on current topics in the law and ethics.
Stetson University’s Veterans Law Institute continues to partner with the C.W. Bill Young VA Medical Center and Bay Area Legal Services to offer veterans civil legal services at community clinics in Bradenton and Sarasota from February through December.
The legal clinics are designed for veterans enrolled for care with the Bay Pines VA Health Care System in need of legal representation for non-criminal offenses.
Legal clinics for veterans will be available through the Bay Pines VA Healthcare System Medical-Legal Partnership program:
Mental Health Group Room, Bradenton Community Based Outpatient Clinic, 5520 East State Road 64:
9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. on Feb. 11, March 11, April 8, May 13, June 10, July 8, Aug. 12, Sept. 9, Oct. 7, Nov. 4, and Dec. 9.
First-floor Conference Room, Sarasota Community Based Outpatient Clinic, 5682 Bee Ridge Road, Suite 100:
9:30 a.m.- 3 p.m. on Jan. 28, Feb. 25, March 25, April 22, May 20, June 24, July 22, Aug. 26, Sept. 23, Oct. 28, Nov. 25, and Dec. 16.
Legal services will be provided on a first come, first served basis and will address legal issues including family law, housing, consumer, bankruptcy, advanced directives, licensing, sealing/expungement, service-connected disability, and discharge upgrades.
Additionally, legal services for veterans are regularly offered on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. at the MLP Program office in building 100, room 1E-241 at the C.W. Bill Young VA Medical Center at 10000 Bay Pines Blvd, Bay Pines. Walk-in appointments are available from 9-11:30 a.m. and scheduled appointments are available in the afternoon. For more information, visit www.baypines.va.gov/services/mlp.asp, or call 727-398-9592.
Stetson University College of Law student Jasmine Smith calmly explains that she remembers the day when bullets riddled her home as a child. She can also remember what changed her path in life. Smith grew up in Florida as the oldest of seven children in a loving family, lacking the economic security of many of her peers at Stetson Law. As a teenager, she became passionate about the positive impact of education when she was chosen for the College Reach-Out Program, which recruits economically and educationally disadvantaged students to motivate and prepare them to attend college.
Through the program, Smith says that she was exposed to a bigger world beyond her neighborhood. In visiting different college campuses and talking with students every year through her senior year in high school, she envisioned a different future.
(L-R): La’nyjah, Ki’ Amora, Jasmine Smith, Madison and Faith. Photo by Brandi Palmer.
“You can be motivated to do something different once you know there is something different out there,” Smith says.
Smith was selected for the international baccalaureate program in high school and became the first person in her family to go to college when she enrolled at Florida State University.
“Going to college changed my life,” says Smith.
At FSU, she met a homeless student who worked her way through college to become a social worker. It was at FSU that Smith began mentoring elementary, middle and high school students. She volunteered with the PeaceJam Youth Conference. Smith says that she found her focus in college, and knew it was her goal to be an advocate for education and a resource for students in the community.
(L-R): Jasmine Smith with La’nyjah. Photo by Brandi Palmer.
“Mentoring allows students to have a conversation,” Smith explains. “I do a lot of listening.”
Today, the Stetson Law student is paying it forward through a mentoring program at the local Gulfport Montessori Elementary School, where she has become a popular role model for some of the students. Smith regularly visits with four of the elementary school students, and chats with them about everything from their grades in school to the latest dance they invented.
(L-R): Faith, La’nyjah, Ki’Amora, and Madison with Jasmine Smith in the foreground. Photo by Brandi Palmer.
Carolyn Bystrycki, family and community liaison at Gulfport Elementary, explains that being a mentor is not as complicated as some might imagine. Something as simple as being available to share a few minutes with the children during lunch, recess, or a field trip can fill a void.
On a sunny Florida winter day in January, Smith coaxes the students into a brisk game of tag outside on the Gulfport Elementary playground. Bystrycki keeps an eye on the kids while gathering stray chocolate wrappers blowing across the playground. The four girls, Faith, Ki’Amora, La’nyjah and Madison, show off their cartwheels and explode into giggles as they race after Smith.
Bystrycki asks, “Isn’t that the best sound in the world?”
Smith’s enthusiasm for mentoring is inescapable. She is focused on each child, engaging them in conversations about their recent experiences, their plans for next week, and the week after that.
Starting in the spring, Smith talks about participating in a new grant-funded project spearheaded by Stetson Law professor Ann Piccard that pairs law student mentors with children in Florida’s foster care system. Through Professor Piccard’s new School to School Pipeline program, Smith hopes to have an opportunity to talk with children and young adults about their goals, take them on college campus visits, and show them alternative paths.
As a future lawyer, Smith is focused on civil rights and rights restoration, education reform through legislation and allocation of resources. She aspires to start a college prep program to help get lower income students ready for college.
As the Gulfport Elementary children gather to say goodbye to Smith after her visit for the hour, they shower her with thank you notes and smiles.
“I really want to make positive change in the world, in many areas,” Smith says.
For more information on working with the Gulfport Montessori Elementary School as a volunteer, contact Carolyn Bystryckic at [email protected].
To learn more about the School to School Pipeline project for law students, contact Professor Ann Piccard at [email protected].
Deborah Weissman. Photo courtesy University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Distinguished Professor of Law and human rights scholar and advocate Deborah Weissman presents Stetson University’s Wm. Reece Smith Jr. Distinguished Lecture at 6 p.m. on Jan. 24 at the BridgePoint Church, formerly Mirror Lake Lyceum,737 Third Ave. N. in downtown St. Petersburg.
Weissman has focused her past two decades of teaching and scholarship on human rights, immigration, gender violence, and the idea of the lawyer as public citizen. Her current work addresses state and federal responsibility for the use of torture, and focuses on the CIA’s extraordinary rendition and torture program carried out by private contractors as well as government agencies in violation of state, federal, and international law.
Weissman is the Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to teaching, she litigated in the areas of labor, immigration, and civil rights law in state and federal courts and served as executive director of Legal Services of North Carolina.
The Wm. Reece Smith Jr. Distinguished Lecture is funded by a generous gift of the Joy McCann Foundation.
Stetson University College of Law’s Wm. Reece Smith Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law Ann Piccard has received a $10,000 grant from Stetson’s Nina B. Hollis Institute for Education Reform for her Impact Award proposal to fund a “School to School” pipeline project for children in the foster care system in Florida.
Professor Piccard is eligible for an additional two years of funding for her project, which will pair law student mentors with children in the foster care system and provide education-related resources to encourage them to excel in school and fulfill their dreams to attend college.
The project, launching during the spring 2019 semester at Stetson Law, will raise awareness among children in the foster care system about the value of post-secondary and college education, pairing each child with a law school student mentor.
“Foster care children and children in general are often invisible,” said Professor Piccard, who envisions pairing Stetson law students with foster children who need a network of support, resources and mentors in order to graduate from school and succeed in college. “Many foster teens do not even know that they are eligible for tuition waivers at state universities. Knowledge of resources like that and support from mentors can help them succeed and not get lost in the shuffle.”
Professor Ann Piccard.
Other Impact Award recipients include Stetson University professors Sarah Cramer for her McInnis Garden-Based Learning Project, Joshua Eckroth for his Computer Science Camp, Stephen Robinson for his Instruments of Healing, John Tichenor and Jim Beasley for their Stetson Ethics Education Development.
This year’s award recipients will be celebrated during a reception on Dec. 10 from 3-5 p.m. in the Lynn Presentation Room at the Marshall & Vera Lea Rinker Welcome Center at Stetson University, 421 N. Woodland Blvd., in DeLand.
Stetson University College of Law former dean Lizabeth Moody is among 100 pioneering Women Trailblazers in the Law, an oral history collection of the American Bar Association housed at the Stanford Law School Library.
The oral history collection profiles the inspiring stories of women trailblazers in the law.
Lizabeth A. Moody
Dean and Distinguished University Professor Emeritus Moody was vice president and dean of Stetson University College of Law from 1994-1999, opening the Dolly & Homer Hand Law Libraryand laying the foundation for the college’spart-time lawandinternational programs.
Moody was one of only seven women in her class of 160 Yale Law graduates. She opened doors for women in the legal profession, as one of the first women lawyers rated AV by Martindale-Hubbell and the first woman to be elected president of the Cleveland Bar Association. Moody was partner at the prominent Cleveland law firm of Metzenbaum, Gaines & Stern and taught at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, where she and Professor Jane Picker created theWomen’s Law Fund, Inc.
Moody is the recipient of the Josephine Irwin Award honoring women who have championed social justice for women, the American Bar Association Section of Business Law Glass Cutter Award for her extraordinary efforts in paving the way for other women in the legal profession, and the Ohio State Bar Medal, the association’s highest honor. The city of Cleveland named the day of May 8, 1990, in honor of Lizabeth A. Moody.
Moody was honored by the Baltic state of Estonia’s Higher Education Accreditation Centre for her efforts in legal higher education. She taught at Stetson Law in the area of corporate and securities law, with an emphasis on nonprofit corporations and professional responsibility and was inducted into Stetson Law’sHall of Famein 2009.
Stetson University College of Law is offering an intensive training for higher education administrators in the spring, aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.
The five-day, in-depth training program on freedom of expression on college campuses takes place on the Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas cruise ship April 29-May 4.
The cruise boards in Tampa, Florida, travels to Key West, Florida, and Cozumel, Mexico, and returns to Tampa.
Stetson University Charles A. Dana Chair and Director of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law & Policy Professor Peter Lake is facilitating this intensive examination of foundational and operational issues of freedom of expression on campus. The program is offering training on the building blocks of freedom of expression; an overview of key cases and insights into future Supreme Court cases on free expression; tips on developing best practice in regulating extreme expression on campuses; and balancing academic freedom with administrative autonomy.
Stetson University College of Law is currently accepting nominations for the prestigious William Reece Smith Jr. Public Service Award, which recognizes individuals who have provided outstanding service to the legal profession and community. This year’s award will be presented at the annual Inns of Court Banquet and William Reece Smith Jr. Distinguished Lecture in January of 2019.
Wm. Reece Smith Jr. served as a distinguished professorial lecturer at Stetson University College of Law
Nominations must be received by close of business on Monday, Dec. 10. Completed nominations may be emailed to [email protected].
The annual award is named in honor of legendary Florida lawyer William Reece Smith Jr. who served for decades as a distinguished professional lecturer at Stetson Law. Smith, who passed away in 2013, dedicated more than 60 years of service to the legal profession. He worked tirelessly to provide legal services to the poor. Smith founded and served as the first president of Florida Legal Services, served as a city attorney of Tampa, chair and trustee of numerous colleges and universities, interim president of the University of South Florida, and as board member of countless religious, charitable, civic and professional organizations.
Stetson established the William Reece Smith Jr. Award in 1990 to honor outstanding contributions to public service, the justice system and the community.
The conference, Jan. 31-Feb. 4, 2019, in Clearwater Beach, Florida, includes a Title IX Investigator Training Certificate Course and sessions covering “Title IX Regulatory Update,” “Kangaroo Courts? Due Process and the College Court Novation,” “Litigation & Risk Management Update in Higher Education” including a Supreme Court update.
Conference attendees may register separately for the daylong Title IX Investigator Training Certificate Course, on Jan. 31, 2019.
“The release of new proposed regulations is a landmark moment in Title IX regulatory enforcement, with complex ramifications for colleges that seek to come into and stay in compliance with Title IX mandates,” said conference chair and Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy director Peter Lake. Professor Lake is the Charles A. Dana Chair at Stetson University College of Law.
Stetson advocates achieved two milestone firsts in 2018. (L-R): Ava Baumgartner, Vanessa Denk, Julia Alley, Jahanna Azarian, Caroline Garrity, Meghan Sullivan, Brooks Robinson, Martin Musichi, Olivia Mejido and Dale Tan. Photo by Brian Vandervliet.
Stetson Law achieved two advocacy milestonefirsts this year.
Stetson won the inaugural American Bar Association Competitions Champion Award in May. The ABA Law Student Division hosts four practical skills competitions—the arbitration, negotiation, client counseling and national appellate advocacy competitions. The Competitions Champion award is presented to the law school that accrues the most points through team achievements and participation in the ABA Law Student Division’s four practical skills competitions. In 2018, more than 1,300 students from 156 law schools participated in one or more of these competitions.
For the first time in its 17-year history, Stetson’s Dispute Resolution Board achieved a perfect four-for-four record of advancing to nationals in all four dispute resolution competitions sponsored by the ABA—arbitration, client counseling, mediation, and negotiation—competitions that represent all the areas in which the Dispute Resolution Board competes. Stetson University College of Law is the first school to achieve this distinction. Stetson teams advanced to nationals from regional ABA championships in arbitration and negotiation in November of 2017, client counseling and mediation in February of 2018.
This year, Stetson celebrates the 20th time in 24 years being ranked the top law school for Trial Advocacy andconsistently ranking among the top six legal writing programs since the inception of the Legal Writing rankings inU.S. News & World Report.
L-R: Tony Castro, Kaile Bennet, George Hiller, Valeria Villaverde, Grace Kobitter, Hannah Yoder.
Stetson University College of Law’s Dispute Resolution Board recently won the William & Mary Law School Negotiation Tournament for the third year in a row. Stetson Law students George Hiller and Valeria Villaverde won the competition on Nov. 4, and Villaverde was also named Best Overall Advocate.
Professor James Sheehan and alumnus Bill Greiner traveled with and coached the teams.
Professor Erika McArdle, the associate director for Stetson’s Center for Excellence in Advocacy, said, “It is an incredible accomplishment to not only win this competition but to have won this three years in a row. This speaks to the quality of our advocates and coaches and the selfless dedication they have to Stetson and the DR board.”
Stetson sent three teams to the competition. The student teams of Tony Castro and Hannah Yoder and Kaile Bennet and Grace Kobitter also competed.
