What Are Uthmeier's Students, Colleagues At UF Saying About His $100,000 Salary?

After an investigation from the Miami Herald, printed final month, discovered Florida Attorney General and UF regulation adjunct professor James Uthmeier is paid $100,000 a yr at UF’s Levin College of Law — for educating a single, two-hour class every week — some members of the regulation faculty neighborhood have criticized the excessive determine. Others, together with certainly one of his personal college students, justify the sum by declaring the distinctive perspective he brings to the classroom.

Combined with his lawyer basic wage, Uthmeier makes $240,000 a yr from taxpayer funds, nearly $100,000 greater than Gov. Ron DeSantis.

He is the highest-paid adjunct professor at the regulation faculty for $20,000, in response to wage information offered by UF. The second-highest paid adjunct professor, Jonathan Grossman, made $80,000 a yr. Grossman teaches bar preparation courses at a number of Florida regulation colleges, in response to his website.

Uthmeier teaches a two-credit upper-level course on federalism and the separation of powers on Mondays from 5 to 7 pm, for which he makes an over two-hour drive from his dwelling in Tallahassee. He at the moment teaches no different courses however acts as a part-time advisor to college students inside the regulation faculty.

Uthmeier’s workplace didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark over electronic mail and telephone. When approached by two Alligator reporters at his classroom, Uthmeier declined to remark, strolling shortly away within the different route.

Jake Heiges, a 26-year-old UF regulation pupil who’s at the moment taking Uthmeier’s two-credit class, mentioned the anger over his wage shouldn’t be directed at Uthmeier. If the college provided him the cash, he had each proper to take it, he mentioned.

“If someone’s throwing a bag, I think you should take the bag,” he mentioned. “If someone came up to me and said, ‘Here’s 100 grand to do X amount of work.’ You kidding me? I’m saying yes.”

He in contrast Uthmeier to basketball participant Luol Deng, saying Deng obtained paid far more than he was price and to “take that for what you will.”

Deng signed a four-year, $72 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2016, which is usually described as one of many worst contracts in NBA historical past. Because of the character of the contract, the Lakers ended up paying Deng a number of million {dollars} a yr after he not performed for the group.

Heiges mentioned he was in search of a two-credit class for the Spring and was influenced to take Uthmeier’s class due to his expertise as lawyer basic, saying it made him intrigued, and it is “a good connection to have.”

“His practical experience is unlike what you find from most law professors,” he mentioned. “I do think that it brings a sort of invaluable perspective that you don’t get from pure academics.”

Peter Molk, the dean of college affairs and professor at UF Law, mentioned colleges rent adjunct professors for various causes, together with the programs they will educate, the experiences they’ve and the connections they create to the college from their professions.