January 11, 2019

From the Dean

FSU Law deans and December graduates at a toast celebrating our new alumni

Our spring semester began this week and we are delighted to have everyone on campus! The hallways have been abuzz with excited, refreshed students. We welcome our new and visiting students, and are pleased to have two new faculty members join us this semester. Douglas Kahn is visiting this spring and teaching Taxation. He is the Paul G. Kauper Professor of Law Emeritus at Michigan Law and previously visited FSU Law in the spring of 2017. In addition, Jennifer Winegardner has joined our dynamic legal writing faculty. She has extensive private practice experience and was a staff attorney at the Florida Supreme Court. Please look for articles about Professors Kahn and Winegardner in upcoming issues of the newsletter. We also want to congratulate our students who graduated in December and wish them well as they begin the next chapters in their lives. We were pleased to celebrate the small group of December graduates with a graduation toast the day before the commencement ceremony. Best wishes to everyone as they navigate their new endeavors!

- Dean Erin O'Connor

Faculty Profile: John F. Yetter

John F. Yetter, FSU Law Professor Emeritus, will teach Sports Law during the spring 2019 semester. He retired from full-time teaching in 2007 and now teaches Sports Law once a year. This spring will mark his 51st consecutive year teaching at the College of Law — a faculty record! Yetter received his J.D. from Duquesne University School of Law and in 1968, an LL.M. from Yale Law School. It was there he met Dean Mason Ladd who offered him the job at FSU. In 2017, the College of Law Alumni Board presented him with the Class of ’66 award, given to a non-FSU graduate who has rendered distinguished service to our law school and to the community. He was then inducted into the Class of 1966 to commemorate the year that FSU Law opened its doors.

“I’m chasing Vin Scully’s record of 67 consecutive years of performance (broadcasting Dodgers games). It’s a long shot but that’s why they play the game.”

Alum Profile: Matthew Z. Leopold (’04)

Matthew Z. Leopold currently serves as general counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. He was appointed to the post in September 2017 and confirmed on December 14, 2017. He previously practiced at Carlton Fields in Tallahassee, assisting clients with transactions, litigation, regulatory concerns, permitting and public policy across a wide range of issues. Leopold also was general counsel at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division. He also previously worked in the Washington, D.C. office of Florida Governor Jeb Bush as a federal policy advisor on environmental matters. During his career, Leopold has handled a broad range of environmental and natural resources law issues and worked on complex environmental cases. During his time at the Department of Justice, he twice received the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Excellence.

“It’s a tremendous honor to lead EPA’s Office of General Counsel. Serving the public through government service is an extremely satisfying legal practice. The work is endlessly challenging, and I’ve had the opportunity to work on landmark rulemakings creating national precedent in environmental and administrative law. I consider EPA general counsel to be the best environmental law job there is.”

Student Profile: 3L Alexander Card

Desired Practice Location: Tallahassee or Atlanta
Expected Graduation: May 2019
Field of Law Sought: criminal law, personal injury law, intellectual property law, litigation

Third-year law student Alex Card earned his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of South Florida. Originally from Tampa, Card will graduate from FSU Law in May 2019. This semester, Card is scheduled to work at the Office of the State Attorney for the Second Judicial Circuit as a certified legal intern, where he will work on cases from beginning to end. During his first year of law school, Card clerked at a criminal defense and personal injury law firm in Tampa. In the spring of 2018, Card won a scholarship to spend a week in Seattle representing FSU at the International Trademark Association, where he met attorneys from all over the world and learned about new issues in trademark law. During the summer of 2018, Card participated in the Summer Program in Law at the University of Oxford in England. Card is also an active member of the FSU Law Trial Team and has participated in multiple competitions across the country. Card is a member of the Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law, where he has refined his abilities in legal writing and editing. He is also the vice president of the Intellectual Property Law Society at FSU. Before law school, Card played bass and sang in a rock band that toured across North America with acts such as Reel Big Fish, the Vans Warped Tour, Sugar Ray, Yellowcard, and Echosmith. He has continued to play music on weekends throughout law school so he could have a fun and creative outlet. If you are interested in hiring Card after graduation, contact him by email at aac17f@my.fsu.edu.

“Through the wonderful experiences I have had at FSU, I gained a great deal of insight into what I love about the law and what I hope to accomplish after graduation.”

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