Stetson University College of Law students won the American Association for Justice Regional Mock Trial Championship on March 10 in Miami, Fla.
AAJ Regional winners (L-R): Charles Strauss, William Gower III, Erica Emas and Andona Zacks-Jordan. Photo by Austin Miniard.
Sixteen teams competed in Miami. Stetson students Erica Emas, William Gower III, Andona Zacks-Jordan and Charles Strauss won the regional and a chance to compete against 13 teams from around the country in the AAJ nationals, April 4-7, in New Orleans.
“These competitions give our students the opportunity to learn and practice the exact same skills that will serve them, and even more importantly their clients, well in years to come,” said Stetson Trial Advocacy Fellow Lee Coppock. “The prestigious American Association for Justice competition is one of only two mock trial events that starts with more than 200 different squads and ends with one champion.”
Coppock, Judge David A. Demers and St. Petersburg College paralegal studies dean Susan Demers coached the team.
Stetson University is one of 14 universities named a Presidential Award Finalist in the 2013 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. The Honor Roll recognizes higher education institutions that reflect the values of exemplary community service and achieve meaningful outcomes in their communities. Stetson’s selection to the Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement.
“Stetson has a long history of service learning and educating students to be significant, as both leaders and participants in an ever changing world,” said Wendy B. Libby, president, Stetson University. “We’re honored to receive this prestigious award, and owe much of it to the students themselves. They are the energy driving our commitment.”
There were 810 applications submitted for the awards, and 690 were chosen to be recognized. Of the 690 schools recognized in this year’s Honor Roll, there are 571 Honor Roll designees; 100 Honor Roll with Distinction; 14 Presidential Award Finalists and 5 Presidential Award winners.
“Our mission at Stetson’s Center for Community Engagement is to promote lifelong commitments to social responsibility that embrace volunteerism and encourage service learning,” said Kevin Winchell, assistant director of community engagement. “This award shows that our students, faculty and staff have the ability to directly engage in activities that foster all of our values and improve the campus, community, and world.”
Some of the projects that Stetson students, faculty and staff participated in which were considered for the award include:
Stetson University’s Bonner Scholars and Leaders Program: provides 60 students with scholarships in exchange for their commitment to at least eight hours of community-based work each week. This resulted in more than 20,000 hours of work for more than 30 different community partners last year.
Stetson College of Law: requires all of its students to complete at least 60 hours of legal and non-legal pro-bono work prior to graduation. This resulted in more than 19,000 hours of highly skilled assistance to legal aid societies, local nonprofits and government agencies last year.
Stetson University and the United Way of Volusia-Flagler Counties: engages students in many ways, including as Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) facilitators at no cost to local families, as fundraisers, as budget allocation committee members, and as volunteers for many other United Way intitiatives. This resulted in $182,092 in tax refunds for local families and more than 6000 hours of volunteer assistance last year.
“Congratulations to Stetson University, its faculty and students for its commitment to service, both in and out of the classroom,” said Wendy Spencer, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency which administers the program. “Through its work, institutions of higher education are helping improve their local communities and create a new generation of leaders by challenging students to go beyond the traditional college experience and solve local challenges.”
More information about Stetson’s Center for Community Engagement can be found here. More information on eligibility and the full list of Honor Roll awardees, can be found at nationalservice.gov.
Stetson University College of Law students will compete at some of the largest international competitions in the world in March and April. Stetson students will compete in the international finals of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, the largest moot court competition in the world, March 31-April 6, in Washington, D.C. Stetson students will also compete at the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, March 23-28, in Vienna, Austria.
The Vis competition includes more than 290 teams from over 65 countries around the world. The Jessup competition includes student advocates from 550 law schools and more than 80 countries.
“In a few weeks, our students will showcase their advocacy skills on the international stage,” said Stetson Law professor and moot court advisor Brooke Bowman. “These competitions give students opportunities to present their arguments before top international judges and attorneys.”
Stetson’s Vis team of Paul Crochet, Meagan Foley, Michael Rothfeldt, Lisa Tanaka and Alex Zesch won the Florida Bar International Law Section Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Pre-Moot in Miami, Fla., on March 2. Foley was named the best oralist in the competition, for an unprecedented second year in a row. The team travels to Vienna to compete in two weeks.
Stetson’s Vis team: Back row L-R: Michael Rothfeldt, Alexander Zesch, Paul Crochet. Front row L-R: Lisa Tanaka, Meagan Foley.
Stetson’s Jessup team of Sharon Galantino, Caitlein Jammo, Bradley Muhs and Carly Ross finished second at the South Super-Regionals of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition in New Orleans, La., on March 1-3, and won the runner-up memorial award. The team heads to Washington, D.C., in a few weeks to compete in the international finals with law students from around the world.
Stetson’s Student Veterans Organization and Student Animal Legal Defense Fund chapter co-sponsored a film presentation on Feb. 28 about using dogs in the military.
Stetson Law professor Peter Fitzgerald’s dogs attended the film presentation about the use of dogs in the military. Photo by Bianca Guerrier.
Stetson Law students, along with dogs “James” and “Dora,” attended a screening of Always Faithful. “Dora” is a registered therapy dog trained by animal law expert Peter Fitzgerald, a professor at Stetson.
The documentary, directed by cinematographer Harris Done and produced by Academy Award-winning filmmaker James Moll, tells the story of U.S. Marine Corps dog teams serving on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Stetson recently initiated a popular therapy dog program to help students manage stress during exam time, which includes visits from therapy dogs trained by Stetson faculty and alumni.
As a young lawyer in his 20s working for the Florida attorney general in Tallahassee 50 years ago, a Stetson University College of Law graduate named Bruce Jacob was assigned to represent the respondent in a Supreme Court case that made history.
Bruce Jacob, professor and dean emeritus at Stetson.
The Court’s landmark decision on March 18, 1963, regarding the right to a fair trial in Gideon v. Wainwright was the impetus for the idea of public defenders. Jacob, now a professor and dean emeritus at Stetson University College of Law, was inspired to dedicate the next 50 years of his life to handling cases for indigent clients.
Shortly after the decision in Gideon, Jacob said he signed up as a volunteer public defender, one of the first in the state.
“I just thought it was the right thing to do,” Jacob explained.
After joining the faculty at Emory University School of Law in 1965, Jacob established the Legal Assistance for Inmates Program at the Atlanta Penitentiary. In just the first two weeks after its launch, more than 750 inmates approached the program for assistance. Jacob supervised the program and 53 students who volunteered to work on cases. In 1969, Jacob took a federal prisoner’s case to the Supreme Court and won the case for the petitioner in Kaufman v. United States.
While studying at Harvard Law School, Jacob helped start the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project. Through the Community Legal Assistance Office in Cambridge, Mass., Jacob supervised law students defending criminal cases and representing indigent people.
Jacob fought for the rights of the indigent throughout his teaching career. He has taught 20 different law school courses over the past 48 years. Jacob currently teaches courses on constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law and criminal procedure at Stetson University, where he has received hundreds of letters from inmates and lawyers through the years requesting his expertise.
Jacob is taking one inmate’s case, the case of Dwight Roberts, to the Florida Supreme Court. That case involves a sentence that was imposed on the basis of an unconstitutional statute, Jacob said.
Recently, Jacob also took the clemency case of Jerome Davis, referred to him by the Public Defender’s Office. A non-violent offender, Davis was convicted multiple times for selling cocaine or fake cocaine and sentenced in 1991 to life in prison, the highest penalty allowed. Jacob estimated that the combined sum of money Davis made from all drug sales was $70 and that tax-payers have spent approximately $30K a year on Davis’ prison stay over the past 20 years.
“Sentences in the U.S. are longer than in any other country in the world,” Jacob said.
Jacob is asking Florida’s clemency board to consider whether Davis’ life-sentence fits his crime, the same sentence defendants convicted of sexual battery, child molestation, and murder have received. Ultimately, the state attorney general, Commissioner of Agriculture and governor will review the clemency application that he filed on May 30, 2012, Jacob said.
One obstacle to shorter prison sentences for non-violent offenders like Davis, Jacob said, could be opposition from the prison industry itself, which supports employees who are caretakers of long-term prisoners. Another obstacle is the struggle to provide indigent people with adequate counsel.
As we approach the 50th anniversary of Gideon, Jacob said that public defender offices are underfunded and lawyers are overwhelmed with cases.
“The justice system requires ethical prosecutors and solid defense lawyers,” Jacob said “Without criminal defense lawyers, the justice system disintegrates.”
Stetson University College of Law professor, graduates, have been appointed to lead efforts to protect wetlands in Florida and around the world.
Professor Royal Gardner and recent graduate Marcela Bonells have recently been appointed to leadership positions on the Ramsar Convention’s Scientific and Technical Review Panel (STRP).
Stetson professor Royal Gardner (second row, fourth from the left) and recent graduate Marcela Bonells (second row, fifth from the left) are both working with the Ramsar Convention’s STRP, shown here meeting with the STRP group in Switzerland.
Bonells, a May 2012 Stetson Law graduate, started work this month for the Ramsar Secretariat in Switzerland as the STRP Technical Officer. A former Biodiversity Fellow at Stetson, she completed an externship at the Ramsar Secretariat in Switzerland in summer 2011 and presented a paper at a Ramsar Pan-American Meeting in Jamaica in December 2011.
Alumna Anna Holt Upton was appointed to serve as outside general counsel for the Everglades Foundation, which is dedicated to protecting and restoring America’s Everglades, in 2011. She is a 2006 graduate of Stetson Law. Upton also represents the Florida Audubon Society in water quality litigation throughout the state.
Civil rights activists Ernest “Rip” Patton and David and Winonah Myers visited Stetson University College of Law on Feb. 22 as part of a special educational event organized by the local chapter of Jack and Jill of America for mothers and children in the Tampa Bay area.
Stetson Professor of Law Cynthia DeBose introduced the program, and Professor of Law Robert Bickel helped coordinate the event, celebrating the courageous activists who made history for racial equality.
“It is crucial that the younger generation understands the trials and tribulations suffered by their ancestors as well as those of their parents’ and grandparents’ generation so that they do not become complacent with the gains in civil rights enjoyed today,” said DeBose. “Parents need to remind their children of the historic struggles for equal rights. Slavery, Jim Crow laws mandating segregated public facilities, and the civil rights era are part of our history not often taught in school, so it is a parent’s responsibility to impart this knowledge to our children.”
(L-R): Civil rights activist and Freedom Rider Ernest “Rip” Patton, Stetson Professor of Law Cynthia DeBose, Freedom Riders Winonah and David Myers visited Stetson Law on Friday night, Feb. 22.
Patton was a member of the Nashville Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Patton and the Myers were members of the Freedom Riders, a group of men and women who risked their lives to assert the right to be treated equally according to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Freedom Riders tested the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that outlawed segregation in interstate public facilities. They traveled to bus stations throughout the Deep South that maintained illegally segregated drinking fountains, restrooms and lunch counters to assert their civil rights. They were met with violence and imprisonment.
Patton regularly participates in Stetson University’s constitutional law and the civil rights movement course, which includes a trip through the South to the historic sites in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee where civil rights history was made. Watch a video documenting Stetson University’s educational trip by visiting the Constitutional Law and the Civil Rights Movement forum.
On Feb. 19, alumni, faculty, staff and friends gathered in the Great Hall on Stetson’s Gulfport campus to celebrate the scholarly contributions of Stetson law professor and civil rights scholar Robert D. Bickel. Bickel’s former students Wil H. Florin JD ’80 and Thomas D. Roebig Jr. JD ’86, who regularly fund Stetson’s travel course on Constitutional Law and the Civil Rights Movement, sponsored the dinner program.
Professor Robert Bickel, second from the right, listens to a presentation Feb. 19 at Stetson honoring his scholarly contributions.
Professor Timothy Kaye spearheaded the event, which included the presentation of an online tribute book to Bickel, called a Webfestschrift, composed of articles written by faculty colleagues and former students. The book entitled “Shaking the World Gently: A Webfestschrift in Honor of Professor Robert D. Bickel” was edited and produced by Kaye in the tradition of the Festschrift, a book written to honor a respected person and presented during his or her lifetime.
Bickel teaches courses including Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Movement, Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Seminar, Defamation, Privacy and Other Issues Seminar, Employment Discrimination, Equal Employment Opportunity Internship, Torts, and Tort Law Practice and Skills.
Stetson’s LL.M. in Advocacy program is led by Charles Rose III, director of the Center for Excellence in Advocacy and Professor of Excellence in Trial Advocacy.
Stetson University College of Law, home to the top-ranked trial advocacy program in the country, is launching an online LL.M. in Advocacy, starting in August 2013. Courses leading to the advanced degree will be offered through a part-time, distance-learning platform.
Stetson’s Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Advocacy program is designed to meet the needs of busy legal practitioners who wish to learn the Stetson method of advocacy. Students enrolled in the program will complete courses online with some limited in-person participation. Applicants for admission to the LL.M. program must have a law degree from a U.S. law school or a law school approved by the appropriate authority outside the U.S.
“Stetson sets the benchmark for trial advocacy in the country,” said Charles Rose III, director of the Center for Excellence in Advocacy and Professor of Excellence in Trial Advocacy. “We focus on preparing our students for the practice of law, providing them the skills, knowledge and confidence to be as comfortable before the bench as they are drafting a brief for a case or interviewing a client. Stetson gives students the skills they need to conduct the business of law in the real world.”
The new online LL.M. program is offered through Stetson’s Center for Excellence in Advocacy, home to advocacy teams who have won four international titles, 60 national championships, 40 state titles, 38 best brief awards, and 96 best oralist/advocate awards. In the 18 years that U.S. News and World Report has ranked trial advocacy programs, Stetson has been ranked the top program 14 times.
Stetson’s advocacy center is also a resource for law professors and practitioners, hosting an annual Educating Advocates: Teaching Advocacy Skills conference and maintaining an Advocacy Resource Center.
Stetson University College of Law, home to the top-ranked advocacy program in the country, will launch the online Stetson Journal of Advocacy and the Law in May. This is believed to be the first law review designed to be read entirely online.
Students Jamie Combee and Erik Johanson are the founding editors of the journal, which will include a range of articles related to trial work and practical advocacy skills. Both students are members of Stetson’s award-winning Moot Court Board.
The students explained that the journal will have shorter format articles than can be easily viewed on mobile devices. Members of the judiciary, legal practitioners, as well as academics and law students, are invited to submit short articles on the subject of practicing advocacy.
“Articles do not need to conform to one topic or case,” Combee said.
Fellow student Johanson said, “Articles can focus on any practice area that involves advocating for clients.”
Professors Kate Bohl and Timothy Kaye are the journal’s faculty advisers. Bohl said she hopes the journal will appeal to a broad audience.
Professor Kaye personally designed the journal’s website to meet the increasing needs of burgeoning mobile technology. Last year, Kaye and six of his students authored a critically acclaimed book on jurisprudence.
The public is invited to attend a provocative conversation about sex trafficking in our community during the “Shattering the Stigma: Human Trafficking Breakfast Forum” on Feb. 27. The event is free, but advance reservations are requested. To RSVP, please call 813-254-1734 or email [email protected].
WHEN:
Wednesday, Feb. 27, 7:30-10:30 a.m.
WHERE: William Reece Smith Jr. Courtroom
Stetson University’s Tampa Law Center
1700 N. Tampa St., Tampa 33602
WHAT: The forum will feature a panel of several of the most prominent figures in Florida’s efforts to combat human trafficking crimes, as well as former victims of trafficking. The event is sponsored by The Junior League of Tampa and hosted by Stetson University College of Law.
Participants will include:
Luz Nagle, Stetson University College of Law professor
U.S. District Court and Florida Circuit Court judges
Special Agent Bill Williger of the Department of Homeland Security
Courtney McCowen of the Office of the Secretary, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice
Connie Rose, survivor and president and founder of Victims 2 Survivors.
Human trafficking is a major crime activity in Tampa and in the state of Florida, which ranks third in the nation for the crimes. Many sex trafficking victims are children exploited through Florida’s adult entertainment industry and prostitution, and the average age is 12-years-old, according to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center and FSU Center for the Advancement of Human Rights.
“This event is aimed at engaging more of our community in a conversation about how to combat this terrible crime,” said Stephanie Wiendl, president of The Junior League of Tampa. “We will explore where and how human trafficking is happening in the Tampa Bay area and how we as citizens can make an impact in the fight against this criminal activity.”
Members of the media: For additional event details, please call Suzanne Oaks Brownstein at 813-254-1734 or email [email protected].
Seven Stetson Law students in Professor Carol Henderson’s Scientific Evidence Workshop had an opportunity to learn firsthand what it’s like to work a crime scene investigation on Feb. 12.
Students in Professor Henderson’s Scientific Evidence Workshop conducted their own investigation of a mock crime scene on campus.
Pinellas County crime scene investigators walked the students through the process of collecting evidence at a mock crime scene on the Gulfport campus. The law students learned how evidence presented in the courtroom is collected during investigations.
“I thought it was a great experience,” said student Charles Strauss. “The hands-on experience of seeing the investigation procedures and techniques was an invaluable asset that can be used in legal practice. The class overall, but especially the crime-scene day, has fueled an interest in the forensic sciences that I will carry beyond just law school.”
