Phone: 305.284.2735
Fax:
Email: aalfieri@law.miami.edu
Home Page: www.law.miami.edu/ceps
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Summary Description:
Founded in 1996, the School of Law’s Center for Ethics and Public Service is an interdisciplinary clinic devoted to the values of ethical judgment, professional responsibility, and public service in law and society. The Center provides training in professional ethics to the Law School and the University as well as to the Florida business, civic, education, and legal communities. The Center also provides legal representation and economic development training to low-income communities. The Center observes three guiding principles: interdisciplinary collaboration, public-private partnership, and student mentoring and leadership training. Our goal is to educate law students to serve their communities as citizen lawyers. Staffed by Law School and University student fellows and interns, the Center operates three practice groups in the fields of ethics education, professional training, and community service. The Bar & Bench Group offers continuing legal education ethics training to South Florida bar associations, courts, law firms, and nonprofit groups. Additionally, the Bar & Bench Group provides ethics and professional liability (compliance, risk management, and loss prevention) training to the for-profit and nonprofit corporate community through its new Corporate and Professional Responsibility Project. The Education Group teaches law, public policy, and ethics to students and faculty in Miami-Dade County public and private schools, sponsors interdisciplinary ethics and leadership colloquia at the Law School and University, and teaches freshman and upper-class honors seminars in the College of Arts & Sciences. The Pro Bono Group administers the Community Economic Development and Design Project (CEDAD), a community-based education and technical assistance program furnishing economic development and self-help advocacy training to low-income neighborhoods in collaboration with the School of Architecture, and the Community Health Rights Education Project (CHRE), an integrated teaching, research, and community service program providing health rights representation in public benefits and immigration cases to underserved communities in cooperation with the Schools of Nursing and Medicine.

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Program History:

The Center is the recipient of five prestigious national, state, and local bar and bench awards from the American Bar Association (1998 E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award), the Florida Supreme Court (1999 Faculty Professionalism Award), the Florida Bar (2000 Seventh Annual Professionalism Award), the Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (2001 Arete Award), and the Association of American Law Schools Clinical Section Committee on Lawyering in the Public Interest (2004-2005 Gary Bellow Scholar). Since 1996, the Center has trained over 150 fellows and interns, educated over 9,000 members of the Florida bar, bench, Law School, University, and civic communities, and dedicated more than 42,000 student hours to public service.
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Confidential Items: None

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Expanded Program Description (Optional):

February 4, 2005

Professor Clark D. Cunningham
W. Lee Burge Professor of Law and Ethics
Georgia State University College of Law
140 Decatur Street, Suite 400
Atlanta, Georgia 30303

Re: National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism

Dear Professor Cunningham:

On behalf of the University of Miami School of Law, I am very pleased to re-nominate the Center for Ethics & Public Service for the National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism in honor of its programmatic contributions to legal ethics, professional responsibility, and professionalism.

Founded in 1996 by Professor Tony Alfieri, the Center is an interdisciplinary clinic devoted to the values of ethical judgment, professional responsibility, and public service in law and society. The Center provides training in ethics and professional values to the Law School and the University as well as to the Florida business, civic, education, and legal communities. The Center also provides legal representation and economic development training to low-income communities. The Center observes three guiding principles in serving the cause of ethics, professional values, and public service: interdisciplinary collaboration, public-private partnership, and student mentoring and leadership training. Its goal is to educate law students to serve their communities as citizen lawyers.

Staffed by more than 70 Law School and University student fellows and interns, the Center operates three practice groups and a dozen projects in the fields of ethics education, professional training, and community service. The Bar & Bench Group offers continuing legal education ethics training to South Florida bar associations, federal and state courts, law firms, and nonprofit groups, including Catholic Charities Legal Services, the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, and Legal Services of Greater Miami. Additionally, the Bar & Bench Group provides ethics and professional liability (compliance, risk management, and loss prevention) training to the for-profit and nonprofit corporate community through its new Corporate and Professional Responsibility Project.

The Education Group teaches law, public policy, and ethics to students and faculty in Miami-Dade County public and private schools, sponsors interdisciplinary ethics and leadership colloquia at the Law School and University, and teaches freshman and upper-class honors courses in the College of Arts & Sciences. Last year, the Education Group trained more than 900 students.

The Pro Bono Group administers two in-house live client clinical projects in Community Economic Development and Design (CEDAD) and Community Health Rights Education (CHRE). CEDAD is a community-based education and technical assistance program furnishing economic development and self-help advocacy training to low-income neighborhoods in housing, land use, municipal equity, and nonprofit corporate responsibility in collaboration with the School of Architecture. In the 2003-2004 academic year, CEDAD conducted neighborhood field studies and self-help advocacy workshops addressing community land trusts, homeowner and tenant rights, vacant lot renewal, and public safety.

CHRE is an integrated teaching, research, and community service program providing health rights representation in public benefits and immigration cases to underserved communities in cooperation with the Schools of Nursing and Medicine. In the 2002-2004 academic years, CHRE assisted patients in 151 cases involving community-based health service programs jointly sponsored by the Schools of Nursing (Family HIV Care and Treatment Program) and Medicine (Adolescent Medicine, Community Pediatrics, Family Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatric Mobile Clinic, School Health Initiative). In an unprecedented cross-disciplinary collaboration at the University of Miami, this year Professor Alfieri and CHRE clinical faculty are team teaching a new graduate course, titled Law, Medicine, and Nursing: Advocacy, Public Policy, and Ethics, in partnership with faculty and students from the Schools of Medicine and Nursing.

Unsurprisingly, the Center is the recipient of numerous prestigious national, state, and local bar and bench awards from the American Bar Association (1998 E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award), the Florida Supreme Court (1999 Faculty Professionalism Award), the Florida Bar (2000 Seventh Annual Professionalism Award), the Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (2001 Arete Award), and the Association of American Law Schools Clinical Section Committee on Lawyering in the Public Interest (2004-2005 Gary Bellow Scholar).

More important, in nine years the Center has trained over 150 fellows and interns, educated over 9,000 members of the Florida bar, bench, Law School, University, and civic community, and dedicated more than 42,000 student hours to public service. In recognition of this extraordinary record of service, this past spring the Law School faculty voted to confer clinical status upon the Center, the first time in-house clinical status has been approved for a faculty-initiated, ethics-based community service project.
In light of the Center for Ethics & Public Service’s innovative program design and service in advancing interdisciplinary ethics education and social justice, and its significant contributions to legal ethics, professional responsibility, and professionalism in law and society, the Law School is proud to re-nominate the Center for Ethics & Public Service for the National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism.
Enclosed for further information are Professor Alfieri’s curriculum vitae, the Center’s brochure, executive summary and current newsletters, and recent letters of support from Law School, University, and community joint venture partners.

Thank you for sponsoring the National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism.

Sincerely,

Dennis O. Lynch
Dean, School of Law

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Supporting Materials:
CEPS packet:
- brochure
- executive summary
- First Decade Hightlights
- Flow Chart
-Spring 2004 newsletter (pdf file)
-Fall 2003 newsletter (pdf file)
-Spring 2003 newsletter (pdf file)
- CEDAD Report
- CHRE Report
Professor Alfieri CV
Letters of appreciation