Maritza Hernandez, RN – FIU Health Law & Policy Clinic Client (l-r); Natalie Castellanos – staff sttorney, FIU Health Law & Policy Clinic; Pamela Roshell – regional director (Region IV), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services; Betsy Havens – attorney and Equal Justice Works fellow, Florida Legal Services, Inc.; Jersey Garcia – executive director, MI LOLA; and Jeannett Spencer – Department of Labor, Wage & Hourly Divisions lead discussion on benefits of the Affordable Healthcare Act. — Miami Times photo/Jose Perez

On Saturday, September 15, 2012 the Florida International University Health Law and Policy Clinic staff attorney, Natalie Castellanos, participated in the National Council of Negro Women’s National Health Care Reform Tour.

Castellanos graduated from FIU College of Law in 2011, where she was active as president of the International Law Students Association and worked at the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and International Human Rights Legal Clinic.

The two-part event – a health fair and a health care reform information session – was held at Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens. Castellanos was one of six panelists who participated in the information session, discussing health care reform and its effect on the FIU Health Law Clinic’s clients to an audience of seventy. Joining Castellanos onstage was one of the clinic’s clients, Maritza Hernandez, who courageously shared her personal story of attempting to access health care after she lost her full-time job as a nurse, had no health insurance, and was diagnosed with a degenerative spinal disease.

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Professor George Knox will deliver a lecture at the next S.T.E.P.P. event on Friday, September 28, 2012. His talk, titled “The Thrill of Sharing: How the Power of Sharing Can Fulfill Your Life,” will begin at noon in Graham Center – 140 at the FIU Modesto A. Maidique Campus.

“The focus of my talk is that sharing is an inherent human trait; it comes naturally and is hard to resist. It makes us feel good, and it enriches us,” said Knox.

The event is part of the “Striving to Enhance Personal Performance” initiative designed by Florida International University to help employees excel personally and professionally. The initiative is designed to provide the tools and motivation that stimulate personal and professional growth and development.

As a force of social change, Mr. Knox’s career and personal endeavors have been marked by empathy, compassion and the gift of sharing to make an incredible difference in the lives of so many.

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FIU Law Professor Charles R.P. Pouncy believes the question of corporate criminal liability is a question of corporate power. Pouncy tackles this issue in his latest article, Reevaluating Corporate Criminal Responsibility: It’s All About Corporate Power (Stetson Law Review, 2012), which was recently featured on the Corporate Crime Reporter.

Professor Pouncy teaches in the areas of business associations, corporate finance, commercial law, banking law and professional responsibility. He has written in a wide range of areas, including corporate law, stock markets in developing countries, law and economics, and critical race and gender theory.

Corporate Crime and Corporate Power

By Editor

The question of corporate criminal liability is a question of corporate power.

That’s according to Charles R.P. Pouncy, a professor of law at Florida International School of Law in Miami.

Pouncy is author of, most recently, Reevaluating Corporate Criminal Responsibility: It’s All About Corporate Power (Stetson Law Review, 2012).

Pouncy tackles head on the increasingly popular idea that we should eliminate corporate criminal liability.

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At its annual meeting, the Executive Council of the Criminal Law Section of The Florida Bar selected Professor H. Scott Fingerhut to serve as chair for 2012-2013.

A former chair of The Bar’s Criminal Procedure Rules Committee, Professor Fingerhut will now lead more than 2,000 prosecutors, public and private defenders, judges, and academics as they strive to improve the manner in which criminal justice is dispensed across the state.

Founded in 1976, the Criminal Law Section provides an open forum to all who share a passion for the fair administration of the law and whose mission focuses on advocating to and for lawyer, law-student, and the public alike on ways in which our court system can improve, including support of the recent recommendations made by the Florida Innocence Commission.  Among its many responsibilities, the Criminal Law Section advises the Florida Supreme Court and the Florida Legislature on proposed substantive and procedural changes in the law as well as sponsors numerous continuing legal education programs throughout the state.

Professor Fingerhut has been with FIU since 2000.  He teaches trial advocacy, pretrial practice, and criminal procedure, coaches the trial team, and this year oversees the criminal law externship program.

In a recent interview with NBC6 Miami, FIU Law Professor Jose Gabilondo discusses the $16 trillion national debt, and explains the difference between our country’s debt and personal debt.

Professor Gabilondo teaches tax and corporate finance at FIU Law and his scholarship focuses on debt markets. He is a nationally recognized commentator in the Spanish-language media on financial and economic matters and has worked in financial market regulation at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the World Bank.

South Florida Professor Explains $16 Trillion Debt

By Gilma Avalos

$16,000,000,000,000. That is the number that would appear on the United State’s theoretical credit card statement.

Although the analogy is often made, our country’s debt is not similar to our personal debt, according to Jose Gabilondo, an associate professor of law at Florida International University.

“I can’t borrow indefinitely, you can’t, but the government can. In a way, it’s not the number that matters,” said Gabilondo. “What matters is can you make your monthly payment? And are your creditors still lending to you? The answer for our country, is yes.”

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FIU Law Professor M. Alexander Pearl will present at the “Heeding Phil Frickey’s Call: The Issues in Indian Country“ Symposium to be held on Sept. 27 and 28 at the UC Berkeley School of Law. The symposium, sponsored by Berkeley Law’s Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, is focused on Indian Country issues including, crime, environmental justice, and international human rights.

“I graduated from Berkeley in 2007 and had the amazing opportunity to study under one of the most prominent scholars of Indian law ever, Philip Frickey.  He passed away at the age of 57 in July of 2010,” said Pearl.  “He was the single most important mentor to me and countless other lawyers and law professors.  The conference is dedicated to him, and his call to enhance scholarship of Indian issues with empirical or at least ‘on the ground’ perspectives.”

Professor Pearl’s presentation will focus on criminal jurisdiction in certain states subject to a federal law, referred to as Public Law 280.  The tribal-state relations in these  jurisdictions are very different than those in states not subject to Public Law 280, primarily because the state government has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute crimes occurring on a reservation in the Indian community.  In non-Public Law 280 states, the state government has no jurisdiction.

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The College of Law is delighted to welcome back J. Eloy Anzola.  Anzola joined our College as a Visiting Researcher from May to December 2010 and will be continuing his research with us again beginning August 15 until mid-February, 2013.  He is a Venezuelan trained lawyer (Universidad Católica Andres Bello) who completed his education in the University of Paris (Admissible au Doctorat de l’Université, Droit Civil), Cambridge University (Introduction to English Law) and Yale Law School (LL.M). Anzola worked as an associate in New York (Whitman, Ransom & Coulson) and in Caracas (Travieso, Evans, Ponte & Rosales). He participated in the foundation d’Empaire Reyna Anzola & Bermúdez and later in the foundation of Anzola Raffalli y Rodríguez, both law firms in Caracas, Venezuela.

Anzola is dedicated to national and international arbitration, as an arbitrator. He has been researching the origins and development of arbitration in Spanish America and now wants to focus his research on arbitration during the XIX Century.  He has participated as an arbitrator in proceedings under the Rules of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Center for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) of the AAA, the Centro Empresarial de Conciliación y Arbitraje (CEDCA) and the Centro de Arbitraje de la Cámara de Caracas (CACC). In several of those arbitrations he has been sole arbitrator or Chairman of the Arbitral Panel. He is member of the list of arbitrators of the ICDR, CEDCA, CACC and the Corte de Arbitraje de Madrid. He is fluent in Spanish, English and French.

Andrea Franklin, 3L, recently wrote an article published in Law360 along with co-author Luis Perez, a shareholder in Akerman Senterfitt’s Miami office. The article, “Interpreting Section 1782 Post-Intel,” was a two-part series analyzing Section 1782 following the U.S. Supreme Court’s seminal decision in Intel Corp. v Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Section 1782 provides the basic requirements and parameters for interested parties seeking information located in the United States for use in foreign proceedings, and has had varied judicial interpretations in the U.S.

It all began when Franklin’s international law professor assigned an annotated summary of an article her roommate’s dad coincidentally wrote. She had never met Luis Perez. All she knew was that Mr. Perez was an international attorney and that he had published an article in FIU’s Law Review. After finally meeting him, she sent him the summary she wrote and offered to help him with research for his next publication.

Eventually, she began sending him memorandums regarding her research findings. After about three weeks, Mr. Perez suggested she start writing a draft for him to review. Upon reviewing a few drafts, Mr. Perez sent her an email to inform her that he would name her as his co-author.

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MIAMI (August 31, 2012) – The Florida International University College of Law ranked second in the nation for Hispanics, according to Hispanic Business magazine. This marks the third consecutive year FIU Law has ranked among the 10 best in the nation, up from No. 4 in 2011.

Each year, Hispanic Business magazine measures and ranks the effectiveness of the nation’s universities in attracting Hispanic students. The rankings are determined based on the percentage of Hispanic student enrollment, percentage of Hispanic faculty members, percentage of degrees conferred upon Hispanics, and progressive programs aimed at increasing enrollment of Hispanic students.

Hispanics accounted for 47.2 percent of the law degrees awarded to the Class of 2011, a mark significantly higher than any other law school in the top 10.

“In less than 10 years, FIU now ranks second in the nation for Hispanics.  Imagine where FIU will be in 20 or 30 years.  Having grown up in Miami, I have seen this university transform from an idea to a city of nearly 50,000 students.  I am excited about our future,” said Dean R. Alexander Acosta.

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