Advisory Board
Dean R. Alexander Acosta
R. Alexander Acosta is the Dean of the College of Law at Florida International University. A native of Miami, Dean Acosta earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his law degree from Harvard Law School. After serving as a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Dean Acosta practiced law at the law firm of Kirkland and Ellis and taught at the George Mason School of Law.
Dean Acosta returned to public service as a Senate-confirmed Member of the National Labor Relations Board, an independent federal agency responsible for administering and interpreting the National Labor Relations Act, the principal federal statute that regulates private-sector labor relations. As a Board Member, he participated in or authored more than 125 opinions. Dean Acosta was again confirmed by the Senate to be the first Hispanic to serve as Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights, at the Department of Justice. While there, he reopened the investigation into the murder of Emmett Till.
Most recently, Dean Acosta became the longest serving U.S. Attorney in South Florida since the 1970s, sitting as the senate-confirmed United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, which carries one of the busiest trial calendars in the nation. Under Dean Acosta, the Southern District prosecuted a wide variety of historic matters, including the prosecutions of Jack Abramoff for fraud, of Jose Padilla for terrorism, of Charles Taylor Jr. for torture, the first torture case of its kind in the U.S., and of Cali Cartel founders Miguel and Gilberto Rodriquez-Orejuela for importation of 200,000 kilos of cocaine, which resulted in a $2.1 billion forfeiture. Dean Acosta also targeted white collar crime, overseeing several bank-related prosecutions including that of Swiss Bank UBS, which agreed to pay $780 million and, for the first time in history, to provide the United States with the names of individuals that were using secret Swiss bank accounts to avoid payment of U.S. taxes. Dean Acosta additionally focused on creating an innovative approach to prosecuting health care fraud, including the first Health Care Fraud strike force in the nation. These efforts made South Florida the top district in the nation for health care fraud prosecution.
Dean Acosta has received several professional recognitions, including the American Bar Association's Council on Legal Education's Legacy Award for efforts on diversity; the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund's Excellence in Government Award and the D.C. Hispanic Bar Association's Hugh A. Johnson Jr. Memorial Award. In addition to his leadership role at the College of Law, Dean Acosta has a special interest in framing the national policy debate on infrastructure investment in education.
Betsy Biben-Seligman
A Forensic and Clinical Social Worker, Betsy serves as the Chief of the Office of Rehabilitation and Development (“ORD”) for Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (“PDS”) where she has been employed since 1982. She has prepared sentencing reports and/or testimony before courts in Washington, D.C. (local and federal), Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama and has trained judges, attorneys, law and social work students on a national and local basis since 1976. She is a founding member of the National Association of Sentencing Advocates, renamed NASAMS (National Alliance for Sentencing Alternatives & Mitigation Specialists), a consultant for The Sentencing Project, and a former consultant at the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives (NCIA). Betsy is a former chair of the NLADA Social Service Section and has been a board member of the Southern Center for Human Rights since 1992. She is a member of the board for Visitors’ Services Center since 2003. She has worked in the criminal justice system since 1974. Betsy received her Masters in Social Work from the University of Connecticut in 1982, and a postgraduate certificate from the Washington School of Psychiatry in 1986. She is a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers (ACSW) and is a licensed social worker in D.C. (LICSW) and Maryland (LCSW).
Former Advisory Board Members:
President Emeritus Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte
Talbot ("Sandy") D'Alemberte, President Emeritus of The Florida State University, served as President from January 1994 to January 2003. From 1984 to 1989 D'Alemberte served as dean of the FSU College of Law. Earlier he represented Dade County in the Florida House of Representatives from 1966 to 1972 where he chaired several legislative committees including the Judiciary Committee that drafted and passed a major judicial reform constitutional amendment in 1972. During his legislative service he was recognized as the Outstanding First Term member (1967) and, in his last term, named Most Outstanding Member of the House (1972).
After leaving the Florida Legislature, he chaired the Florida Constitution Revision Commission in 1977-1978 and the Florida Commission on Ethics in 1974-75.
During his years of practice, D'Alemberte concentrated on media and public law work and his cases included the proceedings that led to the first rule allowing camera access to courtrooms, representation of Post-Newsweek Stations during the historic FCC license challenges during the Nixon years, service as Chief Counsel in impeachment proceedings against three justices of the Florida Supreme Court, the first litigation involving the Copyright Act of 1976, a number of libel trials and appeals, the representation of the Florida House of Representatives in several constitutional cases, Chief Counsel for a United States Senate Banking Sub-committee investigating HUD and pro bono counsel in four death penalty cases.
D'Alemberte was very much involved in the early days of the modern dispute resolution movement, chairing the first ABA committee on the subject and he has served as a mediator, most notably in the water dispute between Alabama, Florida and Georgia. An award of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution is named for D'Alemberte and another early leader of the dispute resolution movement.
He has been active in the organized bar, serving as President of the American Bar Association (1991-92), President of the American Judicature Society (1982-84) and Chair of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar (1982-83). He chaired several ABA committees including chair of the first dispute resolution committee and the first election reform committee.
He was particularly active in the ABA effort to establish a program to give assistance to those in emerging democracies following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Working with others, he created the ABA program called "CEELI" (the Central European and Eurasian Law Institute) that provided help in the development of constitutions, laws and institutional improvements in the Central and Eastern European region. This program has been expanded to involve all other regions of the world in a comprehensive Rule of Law program that is one of the ABA's most important programs, and the largest pro bono project ever undertaken by the ABA.
Awards D'Alemberte has received include the ABA Medal in 2003, the 2001 Wickersham Award given by the Friends of the Law Library of Congress, the 1996 American Judicature Society's Justice Award for his efforts to improve the administration of justice in the United States, the 1996 National Council of Jewish Women's Hannah G. Soloman Award, the 1993 Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers "Perry Nichols" Award, the 1993 Florida Academy of Criminal Defense Lawyers Annual Criminal Justice Award, the 1990 Jurisprudence Award from the Anti-Defamation League of South Florida, the 1987 Florida Bar Foundation medal of Honor, the 1986 National Sigma Delta Chi First Amendment Award, a National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences "Emmy" in 1985 for his work in open government, particularly in the opening of court proceedings to electronic journalists, the 1984 Florida Civil Liberties Union "Nelson Poynter" Award, and the ABA Section of Legal Education Robert J. Kutak Award and the ABA World Order Under Law Award.
In 2007, D'Alemberte received the Tobias Simon Pro Bono Award from the Supreme Court of Florida and was recognized by the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities with the Robert Drinan Award.
In 1976, in connection with the Bicentennial, he was recognized as one of the 76 outstanding Floridians and, in 2010, he was recognized by the Florida Secretary of State as a "Great Floridian." In 2009, he was given a lifetime achievement award by Leadership Tallahassee.
Mark Olive (center, during remand of Atkins v. Virginia)
Mark Olive's national practice of law focuses on death penalty defense litigation, educating lawyers, judges, and law students about capital punishment and habeas corpus practice, and consulting with and helping capital defense teams provide quality representation for the neediest of clients. Some of Mark's cases include: Fleming v. Zant, 386 S.E.2d 339 (Ga. 1989), where the Georgia Supreme Court found that the execution of persons who suffer from mental retardation violated the Georgia Constitution; Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), a case where the United States Supreme Court found that such executions violated the Eighth Amendment; Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390 (1993), a Texas case where a majority of the Supreme Court agreed that the execution of an innocent person would violate the Eighth Amendment; Williams v. Dixon, 961 F.2d 448 (4th Cir 1992), where the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that North Carolina's capital jury instruction violated the Eighth Amendment; and Maas v. Olive, 992 So.3d 196 (Fla. 2008), Olive v. Maas, 811 So.2d 644 (Fla 2002), where the Florida Supreme Court invalidated fee caps in capital cases. Mark was the Director of the first Capital Resource Center in the country, opened in Florida in 1985, which provided assistance to pro bono attorneys (and provided direct representation) in capital cases. He was later the Director of both the Georgia and Virginia Resource Centers. He regularly teaches a Death Penalty and the Supreme Court seminar at the University of North Carolina College of Law in Chapel Hill. Mark was awarded the National Legal Aid and Defender Association's Life in the Balance Achievement Award in 2003.