The College of Law was founded in 1909 with
Albert J. Farrah as its first dean. It was first housed in
Thomas Hall, and then in
Bryan Hall from 1914 to 1969. The school excluded African Americans.
Virgil D. Hawkins was denied admission because he was African American in 1948. He appealed to the
Florida Supreme Court and then the U.S. Supreme Court for relief. The college finally
desegregated in the wake of his fight on September 15, 1958, and admitted an African-American student, and its faculty was
desegregated shortly thereafter. In 1969, the college moved to its current location in Holland Hall, which is named after the former Florida Governor, U.S. Senator, and alumnus
Spessard L. Holland (LL.B. '16). Holland Hall is located in the northwest section of the university's campus. In 1984, Bruton-Geer Hall, named after the parents of alumnus Judge James D. Bruton (LL.B. '33) and his wife
Quintilla Geer Bruton, was added to the law school complex. The College of Law was renamed the Levin College of Law in 1999 after prominent
Pensacola trial lawyer and alumnus
Fredric G. Levin (J.D. '61), who donated $10 million to the college, a sum that was matched by a $10 million grant from the state of Florida to create a $20 million
endowment. The College of Law underwent a major renovation between 2004 and 2005, creating new academic space and expanding the law library, which was named the
Lawton Chiles Legal Information Center after the former Florida
Governor,
U.S. Senator, and alumnus
Lawton Chiles (LL.B. '55). In September 2012, Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas spoke at the College of Law. A new
courtroom facility was completed in 2009. The facility, which was made possible by an additional $2 million donation from the Levin family, is named the Martin Levin Advocacy Center in honor of UF Law alumnus Martin H. Levin (J.D. '88), and son of Fred Levin. The facility is , two stories tall, and includes a state-of-the-art courtroom. The new courtroom is designed to incorporate new technology to allow students to understand the role of technology in modern practice. Construction began on the second phase of the building (the second floor) in Fall 2010 and was completed in Fall 2011. The second floor includes offices and meeting/seminar rooms. In 2024, the law school gave an award to a student paper arguing that "We the People" in the US Constitution protects only white people, calling for the removal of voting rights for non-white people, and contending that white people "cannot be expected to meekly swallow this demographic assault on their sovereignty." The author of the paper has publicly called for Jews to be "abolished by any means necessary." The law school's interim dean, Merritt McAlister, defended the decision to honor the student with the award. Later, the student acknowledged that his own grandfather and great-grandparents were Jewish, but claimed the identities of his ancestors were irrelevant to his thinking. Although he remains enrolled, he has since received a trespass order preventing him from setting foot on campus. == Campus ==