UM Law School

September 26, 2011 UM Law School

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/25/2424318/miami-law-firms-expanding-global.html

The Business Monday section of the Miami Herald has this article detailing how Miami has become a hub for legal business from Asia, Europe, Canada and Central and South America. International legal work in Miami has exploded in the past ten years. Ed Davis relates: “Miami has become one of the top five places in the world where fraud litigation and asset recovery is run out of.” And Joey Zumpano follows up: “Miami may be a secondary legal market domestically, but it’s become the number one international venue in the world for law.”

But our law school has not kept up with the business. Certainly UM has an outstanding international law program, but with so much legal work being done here, the school should be a mecca for lawyers from other countries to come for training. Professor Laurence Rose, who directs the litigation skills program, has been working on programs to train international lawyers, but he needs more tools. A great start would be to authorize the construction of a state of the art courtroom to train law students and lawyers. It would be a great selling point for the school. It would certainly be far more useful here than in southeast Virginia next to an amusement park.