Stephen M. Everhart
Professor of Law
B.A., Florida State University
J.D., University of Florida
2004-2005 US-China Fulbright Lecturer
Courses:
Chinese Legal System Seminar, Evidence, Professional Responsibility, Trial Advocacy
Stetson University College of Law Professor and 2004-2005 US-China Fulbright Professor Stephen M. Everhart teaches and lectures in the areas of world-wide Comparative Clinical Legal Education, The Practical Training of Lawyers and Judges, Practical Professional Responsibility, Legal/Judicial Ethics, Civil and Criminal Law and Procedure, Trial Advocacy, and Administrative/Mediation/Arbitration/WTO Advocacy. As a U.S. China Fulbrighter, he spent the 2004-2005 academic year in China where he lectured and trained Chinese law students, academics, and government and business leaders at all of the top law schools in China from Beijing to Shanghai, Xiamen, Shantou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macau, Hainan, Wuhan, and Chengdu in areas of the law pertaining to evidence law and trial/arbitration advocacy in civil business and criminal dispute resolution.
Professor Everhart helped Stetson become the number one law school in the United States in the teaching of trial advocacy. He co-coached three different Stetson trial teams to three straight national championships. He has run all of Stetson's civil and criminal legal practice clinics, and he has published articles in the areas of civil and criminal litigation, dispute resolution, and written and published a book in both Chinese and English, and he is the recipient of Stetson's Homer and Dolly Hand Prize for Outstanding Faculty Scholarship, and one of his articles made the "Worth Reading" list of the National Law Journal. He has also taught at Temple Law School in the Tsinghua-Temple China LL.M. program where he taught lawyers, judges, police officers, law professors, and prosecutors from the People's Republic of China, and he has also taught in Temple's Civil Litigation LL.M., where he received the highest evaluation Temple's supervisor of that program had ever seen.
He was also appointed by the Governor of the State of Florida to the bench as a Judge of Industrial Claims where he presided over the administrative dispute resolution of worker's compensation cases. He is also the former chair of the Criminal Law Section and the Criminal Procedure Rules Committee of the Florida Bar (a committee that works directly with the Florida Supreme Court in rule making proceedings). Professor Everhart represented The Florida Bar in rule-making proceedings as to the adoption of Rules of Criminal Procedure pertaining to the trial of death penalty cases in Florida. He has trained practicing prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers for The Florida Bar (which lawyers had handled at least 50 jury trials). He is a member and former officer of many civil and criminal trial lawyer groups. He has a degree in Asian Studies and has been trained in Buddhist monasteries and as a martial artist and is a life-long student of the world's generally and Asia in particular's socio-economic, political, legal, cultural and spiritual traditions.
Professor Everhart has served as an officer or director in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Tampa Bay and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Tampa Bay Chapter (NAPABATB) (founding member and first secretary), and he is a member of the Southern Association of Chinese Americans (SACA).
Professor Everhart has either taught courses, spoken at conferences, given lectures, or trained law students, academies, police, government and business officials more than 100 times in China. Below are some of the courses/presentations he has given.
- Sino-American Economic Relations and Their Effects on Chinese and American Legal, Clinical, Business, and Professional Education;
- China's Move to the Rule of Law: Answering Her Critics and Moving On;
- The Pros and Cons of the American Adversarial Dispute Resolution System;
- Comparing and Contrasting Practical Legal Education in China, the U.S. and the World;
- Comparing and Contrasting China's Legal System with Western Legal Systems;
- China, WTO, Transparency, and Independent Dispute Resolution; litigating in the WTO: Controlling The Use And Abuse of Expert Testimony through the use of using The Federal Rules of Evidence and Everhart's Advocacy Techniques;
- The Past, Present and Future of Clinical Legal Education in China;
- How Lawyers Can Make a Difference in a Dispute Resolution System;
- Plea Bargaining in America: Skewing a Skewed System.
VIDEO: Professor Everhart discusses how he has introduced students to the Chinese legal system.
