Mary Adkins
Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law
B.S.J., University of Florida
M.A., University of Florida
J.D., University of Florida
Courses: Legal Research and Writing
Biography
A Master Legal Skills Professor based at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, Distinguished Visiting Professor Mary Adkins teaches legal writing, a field in which she is highly influential, as well as Florida constitutional law.
She has presented extensively on the topic of legal writing, was 2020 Chair of the American Association of Law Schools’ (AALS) Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research, and was given the Board of Directors of the Association of Legal Writing Directors’ prestigious Outstanding Service Award.
In addition, Professor Adkins is an expert in the history and evolution of Florida’s constitution, having extensively researched the 1968 Florida Constitution and its revisions and presented dozens of times on its history. She published two books on the topic: Making Modern Florida: How the Spirit of Reform Shaped a New Constitution in 2016 and Chesterfield Smith, America’s Lawyer, in 2020, which won the 2020 Rembert Patrick Award, an honor the Florida Historical Society presents for exceptional scholarly work on a topic of Florida history.
Professor Adkins co-authored the casebook, Florida Constitutional Law: Cases in Context, as well as multiple scholarly articles exploring the history of the Florida Constitution as well as its revisions. As a foremost scholar on the matter, she has served as an expert witness in cases involving the document. She has conducted oral histories of numerous important historical, political, and legal figures.
Professor Adkins is an executive board member of both the Florida Supreme Court Historical Society and the Florida Historical Society. Before joining UF Law, Adkins was in private practice.
She earned her B.S.J., M.A., and J.D. from the University of Florida.