“This is a passion for me,” Professor Alfieri says. “The mission of the Center is to teach not only professional responsibility and professionalism, and the value of public service, but also to teach ethical judgment as a core value and skill. My biggest challenge is a loyalty to that guiding mission.”

The Center for Ethics and Public Service is an interdisciplinary clinic that is run like a non-profit law firm. Founded in 1996 by Professor Alfieri, the Center provides training in ethics and professionalism to the Law School, the University of Miami community, as well as to Florida’s business, civic, educational, and legal communities. The Center is the recipient of numerous prestigious national and state bar and bench awards.

For the most part, the Center is self-sustaining.

“We float on our own bottom,” explains Alfieri. “Although we are grateful for the administrative and overhead support from the University and Law School, we rely primarily on the revenue we produce, and most importantly on donations from law firms, individuals and corporations.”

The Center is staffed by School of Law student fellows and interns who operate three practice groups: Bar & Bench, Education, and Pro Bono. The Bar and Bench group provides ethics training to non-profit and for-profit organizations.

“This year we have trained over 750 lawyers,” says Alfieri. “We use the revenue from the for-profit training to support our non-profit activities.”

The Florida Bar’s Discipline Counsel last year retained the Center as its in-house ethics expert, and the Center’s fellows and interns are currently consulting on four cases.

“Not only did this open up a revenue stream for us,” explains Alfieri, “but it is providing an extraordinary opportunity for our students.”

In addition, the Education Group teaches ethics – ranging from such issues as euthanasia to free speech – to high-school students at Miami Senior High School and Palmer Trinity School. This group also trains teachers through the Ethics in Education Study Circle project. Here teachers from public and private schools come to campus for a half-day of interdisciplinary training.

The third practice group – Pro Bono – is working on two community-based projects.

The Community Economic Development and Design Project (CEDAD), a joint venture with the School of Architecture, is currently compiling an analysis of every vacant lot in West Coconut Grove, a poor South Miami-Dade community, in the hope that a community land trust can be created and low-income housing built.

“We want to persuade the county, state and federal governments to donate those properties to a community land trust, thus enabling the School of Architecture to build low and middle income housing which will preserve the historical racial integration of that community,” says Professor Alfieri.

The second project the Pro Bono group is working on is the Community Health Rights Education Project (CHRE), which is a joint venture between the Schools of Law, Medicine and Nursing. CHRE provides health rights check-ups at three sites in Miami-Dade, as well as for HIV positive mothers at Jackson Hospital’s Miami Family Program. Because many of these women are dying, the Center’s students make sure their health rights are intact, as well as help with their permanency planning.

“This is the grooviest project I have ever encountered, and I have been involved with non-profits forever,” says Alfieri. “It combines curricular, clinical, research and policy issues across the medical and legal landscape. And that is very unique and innovative and a wonderful experience for our students.”

The success of the Center has drawn an increasing number of applicants from the School of Law. This past year over 75 students applied to become interns, and because of the quality of the students, 39, instead of the usual 25, were accepted.

“By the time these students graduate, they will have received an unparalleled experience they couldn’t get anywhere else,” says Professor Alfieri.

Asked what is the best part of his work at the Center, and Professor Alfieri doesn’t hesitate.

“The students are the best part,” says Alfieri. “It is very gratifying to witness the growth and maturation of your students and celebrate their victories along the way.”

- Michelle Valencia