The interim dean of the Florida International University College of Law starts in August. He cannot, at the moment, even ASK to appear in the federal courthouse down the road.
Daniel Epstein is FIU Law’s new interim dean. Prior to this job, Epstein’s worked as Trump personal attorney and as vice president if America First Legal — non-lawyer Stephen Miller’s “wokeness ambulance chaser” outfit. Now he rises to lead a school of aspiring professionals just weeks after a federal judge imposed professional sanctions barring him from seeking pro hac admission to practice in the Southern District of Florida for a year.
Those who can, do; those who can’t, take administrative roles to become an unnecessary obstacle to those who teach.
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Epstein’s sanction stems from Trump’s “one neat trick” lawsuit against himself. The president sent his lawyers to sue the IRS over a tax records leak that occurred during Trump’s first administration. Then, using his control of the IRS, Trump’s DOJ settled the case, granting Trump and his family a sweeping release from future investigations and a $1.776 billion slush fund for January 6 rioters and other Trump cronies. Including, notably, a child molester who tried to bribe victims into silence with future payouts from Trump.
Judge Kathleen Williams did not approve. Citing the unitary executive theory that conservatives have fought hard to install for decades, Judge Williams rejected the settlement as the byproduct of a sham litigation. And, boy, did she have to dig deep to find evidence of bad faith:
No, just kidding, Trump told reporters that he was suing himself on camera. Note to future FIU students: before the bar exam, make sure to brush up on what an actual case or controversy is, because it might not be in the curriculum for much longer.
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Epstein signed the settlement agreement in the case, despite never entering an appearance. That quirk saved him from the more serious Florida Bar referral Judge Williams slapped on local counsel Alejandro Brito. That said, Judge Williams noted that Epstein swiftly applied for admission and entered appearances in other cases in the district. Of Epstein’s uncharacteristic lack of urgency, “the Court can only surmise that Mr. Epstein was aware that he would never need to appear and litigate the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims.”
Epstein escaped with just a one-year ban on applying for pro hac admission.
While it’s unprecedented for a school to bring in a new dean who just got sanctioned, the remarkable part is that there’s no good reason why the school is in this position in the first place. Because Daniel Epstein has no business being the interim dean of anything.
As the Miami Herald reports, the school’s search committee reached that conclusion so early in its process, that committee member H.T. Smith, a civil rights attorney and founding director of the law school’s Trial Advocacy Program, “didn’t even remember Epstein’s name because he and other committee members so quickly dismissed his application.” Epstein’s experience in higher education consists of sitting on the board for Palm Beach State College — an institution that U.S. News charitably characterizes as “unranked” — and a few years teaching at St. Thomas University’s law school.
By contrast, the top tier of candidates identified by the committee included “a federal judge, a retired three-star vice admiral in the U.S. navy, an internal associate dean, a general counsel for a wing of the U.S. Air Force, multiple deans of smaller schools and more.”
Yes, but had any of those candidates led an organization that accused Pop-Tarts of making kids gay? Because Epstein has.
After FIU’s president — former Ron DeSantis lieutenant governor Jeannette Nuñez with scant serious higher education experience herself — and provost Elizabeth Béjar interviewed the candidates selected by people who understand things like “law” and “education,” they tossed the whole slate and hired Trump’s bumbling attorney instead. Béjar explained:
“At the end of the day, when the President and I met with each of the finalists, perhaps we hadn’t articulated the appropriate vision moving forward for the College of Law. So, that’s not on the search committee, it’s not on the search firm, that’s on the administration.”
This is a fair assessment, because the committee and the search firm belabored under a vision of seeking academic and professional excellence. The president and provost wanted something… not that.
In the cover letter Epstein submitted — also obtained by the Miami Herald — he pitched FIU as the anti-Ivy, arguing the elite schools are “scrambling” to look viewpoint-diverse but are “stuck with the faculty they have, who will block necessary reforms.” Stifling wrongthink and purging faculty standing in the way? Now there’s a vision Nuñez and Béjar can get behind!
“It looks like politics has superseded merit,” Smith told the Herald, summing up conservative hiring for everything from higher ed to the federal judiciary.
And it’s a story that’s hit Florida particularly hard. In its drive to rework its schools into right-wing reeducation camps, the state hollowed out New College, passed a law dictating what public institutions may say about American history, and started toying with dropping ABA accreditation altogether. Against that backdrop, the idea that a political hack installed as the university president would toss a list of 20 capable, qualified candidates to elevate a Trump crony is… unsurprising.
Former FIU Law dean Len Strickman told the Herald the ruling was “fairly serious.” It also raises a PR problem, he said.
“Does the university want to present to the public a face of having its law school led by somebody who has been disciplined for unethical conduct? That’s obviously up to the powers that be in the university for now,” Strickman said.
That FIU deanship has created its share of PR problems since Strickman’s day. The first thing many people remember about FIU Law is that it used to be run by Alex Acosta, Trump’s first term Labor Secretary who had to resign from the cabinet when people started asking questions about the sweetheart plea deal he’d cut years earlier for… Jeffrey Epstein.
Man, FIU has a recurring Epstein problem.
“Central to the values [of FIU] is preparing the law students to meet a high ethical and professional standard. Nothing could undermine these principles of ethics and professionalism than to have a poster boy for ethical corruption serving as the dean of the law school,” Smith said.
On the other hand, Nuñez and Béjar had a “vision” to create the next generation of lawyers willing to fight gay Pop-Tarts, and a dean sanctioned by the local federal court is a small price to pay for that kind of leadership.
‘Unusual’: How a Trump attorney became interim dean of FIU’s up-and-coming law school [Miami Herald]
Earlier: Judge Cites Supreme Court’s Newfound Unitary Executive Theory To Blow Up Trump’s IRS Settlement
Has A Law School Had A Dean Facing Court Sanctions Before? Asking For THIS Law School.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.