Former Miami-Dade County Court Judge and prominent Miami attorney Jeffrey Swartz has joined the faculty at Cooley Law School’s Tampa, Fla., campus as a Visiting Professor. Swartz, who is a 1976 graduate of Cooley, will teach Criminal Law. Also joining the Tampa Bay area faculty is Professor Gerald MacDonald, who has previously taught at all four of Cooley’s Michigan campuses. In addition, Cooley graduate and attorney Katherine Gustafson joins the Tampa Bay faculty as an Academic Resource Center (ARC) Faculty Specialist.
He began his legal career as an Assistant County Prosecutor, 1976-1979, for the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office in Toledo, Ohio. From 1980-1984, he was an Assistant State Attorney for the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida, where he was involved in the prosecution of major crimes cases.
In 1995, Swartz was elected as a judge of the county court for Miami-Dade County, Fla., where he presided over both criminal and civil cases until 2005. He also presided as an acting Circuit Court Judge of the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida in the Criminal, Civil and Family Divisions of that court.
After leaving the bench, Swartz was a partner with Stephens, Lynn, Klein, LaCava, and Puya, PA, 2005-2009, an attorney with Miller, Kagan, Rodriguez and Silver, PL, 2009-2011, and most recently was Senior Trial Counsel for Rosenthal, Rosenthal Rasco Kaplan, LLC, in Aventura, Fla., where he practiced in the areas of commercial litigation and criminal defense in Miami and Broward County.
In addition to his trial practice, Swartz has also participated in appeals and oral arguments before the Ohio and Florida Supreme Courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, and the First, Fourth and Third District Courts of Appeal of Florida on matters relating to substantive law and the Code of Judicial Conduct.
Swartz has served as chair and vice chair of the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, 1998-2004, and as a member of the Florida State Legislature Commission on Capital Cases, 2010-2011.
Gerald MacDonald joined the Cooley faculty in 1992 and teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Trial Workshop. He has served as co-director (with Cooley Professor John Scott) of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Cathy Bennett Invitational Student Trial Advocacy Competition since 2002.
Before joining the Cooley faculty, MacDonald was in private practice with the Washington, D.C., offices of Sidley & Austin, and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey. His practice focused primarily on commercial litigation matters, including commercial contract, anti-trust, regulated industries, employment, and financial industry-related litigation.
Katherine Gustafson, who graduated from Cooley in 2000, has served the school as an ARC coordinator since 2008 at its Auburn Hills campus. She coordinated and taught Introduction to Law classes and skills seminars, provided assistance to students, and helped develop and coordinate academic initiatives designed to help students learn. She has also served as a Visiting Professor at Cooley, teaching Research and Writing.
In her position as ARC Faculty Specialist, Gustafson will teach Introduction to Law and Research and Writing, and will work with students on the skills they need to be successful in law school and as lawyers.
About Thomas M. Cooley Law School: Founded in 1972, the Thomas M. Cooley Law School is a private, nonprofit, independent law school accredited by the American Bar Association and the Higher Learning Commission. Cooley has provided its more than 16,000 graduates with the practical skills necessary for a seamless transition from academia to the real world. Cooley offers its juris doctor program, joint degree programs, and master of laws programs three times a year with enrollment in January, May and September. Cooley Law School has campuses across Michigan in Lansing, Auburn Hills, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, and its new campus in Tampa Bay, Fla. Additional information about Cooley can be found at cooley.edu.
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