<\/p>\n
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, center, attends the first day of the 2026 legislative session at the Florida State Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Tallahassee, Fla.<\/p>\n
Photo by Matias J. Ocner<\/p>\n
mocner@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
Tallahassee<\/p>\n
Within months of Gov. Ron DeSantis handpicking him as Florida\u2019s new attorney general last winter, James Uthmeier landed a lucrative side gig: a $100,000-a-year teaching assignment at University of Florida\u2019s law school for just two hours of instruction per week.<\/p>\n
The former DeSantis aide\u2019s paycheck makes him the highest-paid adjunct professor at UF\u2019s Levin College of Law in at least a quarter century, according to compensation records dating back to 1997. His salary is eight times higher than what the median law school adjunct earns, and comes as the DeSantis administration leans on Florida\u2019s 40 public universities and colleges to justify their spending practices.<\/p>\n
Since August, Uthmeier has been moonlighting in the classroom on Monday evenings. The attorney general \u2014 a political lightning rod with relatively few academic credentials \u2014 lectured 27 law students last fall in an upper-level course examining, among other things, \u201cthe implications of executive overreach,\u201d according to syllabi. This spring, he\u2019s leading a 15-student seminar on constitutional law.<\/p>\n
The seminar syllabus touts his credentials as Florida\u2019s top legal official, promising students that \u201cProfessor Uthmeier will highlight real-life examples of separation of powers and federalism at work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Uthmeier\u2019s adjunct job isn\u2019t unusual; attorneys general around the country have taken on part-time instructional roles at state universities. But the pay \u2014 for a job that typically pays a few thousand dollars per course \u2014 is raising eyebrows in the legal community.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomebody needs to justify the Florida attorney general getting $100,000 a year to teach,\u201d said Joseph DeMaria, a Miami attorney and longtime adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law. \u201cIt\u2019s a hell of an eye opener.\u201d<\/p>\n
Combined with his attorney general paycheck, Uthmeier\u2019s teaching stipend pushes his total state-funded salary to $240,000 \u2014 nearly $100,000 more than the governor\u2019s annual pay.<\/p>\n
Uthmeier\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The interim dean of UF\u2019s law school, Merritt McAlister, defended Uthmeier\u2019s compensation in an interview with the Herald\/Times last week, saying adjunct pay at UF is \u201call over the map\u201d; some instructors teach for free, while others command higher salaries.<\/p>\n
Uthmeier\u2019s value, the dean said, extends beyond his time in the classroom: He has mentored students, hosted dinners and advised the law school\u2019s nascent Program in Law in Government \u2014 an initiative designed to \u201cturbocharge\u201d research and programming on topics ranging from originalism to environmental law.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s more of a resource,\u201d McAlister said. \u201cHe\u2019s not guiding the program.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a coup, she added, that UF lured the attorney general from the Gators\u2019 bitter rival, Florida State University, where he previously taught as an adjunct instructor.<\/p>\n
Despite a behind-the-scenes push for the high-profile hire, UF\u2019s law school didn\u2019t publicly announce Uthmeier\u2019s role until late Saturday \u2014 five months after his start date and just days after the Herald\/Times began asking university officials about his employment.<\/p>\n
\u2018Get you on the payroll as soon as possible\u2019<\/p>\n
Uthmeier\u2019s hiring was set in motion by a member of UF\u2019s Board of Trustees soon after his attorney general appointment last February, McAlister said, declining to identify the trustee. UF\u2019s board is stacked with DeSantis allies and is led by Mori Hosseini, a wealthy Ormond Beach homebuilder and one of the governor\u2019s most prolific donors.<\/p>\n
Internal communications, dated April 2025 and obtained by the Herald\/Times through a records request, show Uthmeier fielding enthusiastic messages from McAlister about getting him on the law school\u2019s payroll \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents are so excited for your class!\u201d the dean wrote in one message, adding that she could \u201cbegin the term of employment sooner if that might be helpful.\u201d Two weeks later, the attorney general replied that he was eager to teach at Florida\u2019s flagship law school but hadn\u2019t prepared a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 \u201cin many years,\u201d and would need time to assemble one so paperwork could move forward.<\/p>\n
It took another month for Uthmeier\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9 to land in McAlister\u2019s inbox. That July, McAlister offered Uthmeier a 12-month appointment running through August 2026. The attorney general\u2019s duties: teaching four to five credits across two courses, one in the fall and spring semesters each, and \u201csupporting our new Program in Law and Government through attending events and providing guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Text messages suggest Uthmeier inquired three days before his start date about working as an independent contractor. McAlister told him that was against school policy. \u201cI can ask Mori for an exception, if one is possible,\u201d the dean said, referring to Hosseini.<\/p>\n
Uthmeier declined, saying his team had given the job a look and was \u201ccomfortable\u201d with the arrangement.<\/p>\n
Florida law allows state employees to hold two public positions under certain \u201cinterchange agreements<\/a>,\u201d enabling them to collect salaries from separate agencies. UF also requires faculty and staff to report outside income and potential conflicts annually<\/a>. Employees who fail to do so risk potential disciplinary actions up to termination.<\/p>\n Asked for copies of Uthmeier\u2019s interchange agreement and conflict-of-interest disclosures, UF\u2019s public records office said Friday that no such documents exist.<\/p>\n According to the dean, UF\u2019s law school pays for security during Uthmeier\u2019s campus visits, with hourly rates ranging from $50 to $80 depending on the officer\u2019s rank. The university does not cover the attorney general\u2019s travel expenses, the dean said, and it remains unclear how he commutes to Gainesville each week.<\/p>\n \u2018An expert in executive overreach\u2019<\/p>\n Before DeSantis tapped him as attorney general, Uthmeier had relatively thin courtroom experience. But he did have some classroom bona fides.<\/p>\n A graduate of Georgetown Law, Uthmeier had once taught at FSU\u2019s law school for about $1,500 per course, according to his contract. He earned a bachelor\u2019s in political science from UF, making his return to Gator Nation a bit of a homecoming.<\/p>\n The attorney general\u2019s prior legal experience includes a clerkship for a federal appeals court judge and a brief stint in private practice. He worked in the Department of Commerce for the Trump administration and then joined DeSantis\u2019 office in 2019 as a senior adviser, later rising to chief of staff and helping guide the governor\u2019s legal and policy agenda.<\/p>\n As one of DeSantis\u2019 closest aides, Uthmeier helped coordinate legal strategy for transporting migrants from Texas to Martha\u2019s Vineyard, oversaw responses to pandemic-era litigation and worked on the state\u2019s escalating legal fight with Walt Disney Company. He was also the campaign manager for DeSantis\u2019 2024 presidential bid.<\/p>\n In his first year as attorney general, Uthmeier has focused heavily on headline-grabbing lawsuits targeting corporate diversity programs and LGBTQ+ initiatives. Among them are cases accusing Starbucks of unlawful race-based hiring practices and alleging Target violated federal law through what his office described as \u201cradical LGBTQ+ activism.\u201d<\/p>\n Uthmeier\u2019s pugilistic litigation style has drawn scrutiny. A federal judge found the attorney general in contempt of court<\/a> last year after he encouraged local law enforcement agencies to enforce a new state immigration law despite a prior court ruling blocking it.<\/p>\n Uthmeier was also involved in the DeSantis administration\u2019s decision in 2024 to route most of a $10 million Medicaid settlement through the state-created Hope Florida Foundation charity<\/a> to his own political committee, created to wage a campaign against recreational marijuana. He has defended his actions<\/a>, saying he did nothing illegal. A criminal investigation in Leon County is ongoing.<\/p>\n The controversies have led some legal observers and UF alumni to question whether Uthmeier is worthy of a faculty role at Florida\u2019s flagship law school.<\/p>\n When informed of Uthmeier\u2019s $100,000 adjunct salary, state Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican who encouraged prosecutors in Leon County to pursue their Hope Florida case, responded with a 10-second laugh.<\/p>\n Andrade, who once taught as an adjunct law instructor for about $2,500 per course at the University of West Florida, noted that UF is effectively paying Uthmeier about $50,000 per class. An alumnus of UF\u2019s law school, Andrade also bristled at the notion of Uthmeier lecturing students about executive overreach.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s an expert in executive overreach,\u201d Andrade quipped.<\/p>\n Florida\u2019s law schools have long recruited high-profile judicial and political figures as temporary instructors. UF\u2019s roster has featured Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and several federal judges.<\/p>\n But Uthmeier\u2019s salary far exceeds those typical arrangements. According to the law school\u2019s compensation records, federal judges\u2019 adjunct salaries have ranged from $31,500 to $0.<\/p>\n DeMaria, the University of Miami law adjunct, defended Uthmeier\u2019s aggressive legal philosophy as a legitimate topic of academic discussion, but argued it\u2019s not worth the $100,000 price tag.<\/p>\n Most adjunct professors teach as a way to mentor students and typically earn only a few thousand dollars annually, said DeMaria, who earns $3,000 per course at UM. He pointed to other prominent politicians who have made far less from their teaching assignments like then-U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, who previously earned $20,784 annually as a political science instructor at Florida International University<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to establish a baseline for what attorneys general earn as part-time professors, according to former Maine Attorney General James Tierney. Tierney taught as an adjunct faculty at University of Maine while he was state attorney general, and said he earned no extra compensation for his classroom services.<\/p>\n Teaching law students at Maine, Tierney believed, \u201cwas just part of my job.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018The Einstein Category\u2019<\/p>\n Details about Uthmeier\u2019s in-class lectures remain scant. The Herald\/Times was unable to contact students enrolled in the attorney general\u2019s courses.<\/p>\n But there are signs so far that he\u2019s making some common \u201crookie adjunct mistakes,\u201d said Bob Jarvis, a longtime law professor at Nova Southeastern University.<\/p>\n Among the pitfalls, according to the professor, are a lack of detailed lesson plans and a comprehensive list of course materials in Uthmeier\u2019s syllabi. Per the syllabi, the attorney general\u2019s classes are \u201ctaught with materials selected by the professor rather than a textbook,\u201d with readings uploaded to UF\u2019s online course directory on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n The syllabi omissions show a lack of curricular transparency, Jarvis said, \u201cso until we see those descriptions, we have no idea if he is giving a balanced presentation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf he\u2019s only including one side,\u201d he added, \u201cthat\u2019s a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Uthmeier\u2019s teaching stipend, Jarvis said he was more concerned about UF\u2019s rationale for offering a $100,000 salary to Uthmeier than he was about whether the attorney general had asked for the high compensation. Speaking in baseball terms, the professor said \u201cif you can get some idiot to pay $50 million to coach a kid\u2019s team, then more power to you.\u201d<\/p>\n Uthmeier being Florida\u2019s top legal official undoubtedly offers valuable insight and career opportunities for students, Jarvis said. Still, he expressed doubts that the attorney general qualifies for \u201csuper adjunct status.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf Albert Einstein was looking to teach, it would be perfectly reasonable for a physics department to offer him $1 million \u2014 even if he did nothing,\u201d Jarvis said. \u201cWhat\u2019s Uthmeier done that puts him in the Einstein category?\u201d<\/p>\n In McAlister\u2019s view, Uthmeier is worth the premium. The dean said he\u2019s helping address what she described as a longrunning weakness at the law school: \u201cengaging with different viewpoints.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s the same fault DeSantis has lobbed more broadly at academe, echoing grievances among conservatives scholars who feel marginalized by left-wing groupthink.<\/p>\n As attorney general, Uthmeier has embraced DeSantis\u2019 conservative makeover of Florida higher education, saying \u201cit was an honor\u201d to help install conservatives into multiple college president vacancies and warning state lawmakers that \u201cthey were elected to get the woke out of higher ed<\/a>.\u201d In the past year at UF, the GOP\u2019s push to eliminate academic leaders seen as insufficiently hostile to left-leaning academics effectively derailed the hiring of a new president<\/a> and multiple college dean searches<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alluding to the immense political pressure that universities find themselves under, McAlister said Uthmeier is helping UF\u2019s law school \u201creckon with this moment in higher education.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are proud to have him as a member of this community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n This story was originally published February 17, 2026 at 5:23 PM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, center, attends the first day of the 2026 legislative session at the Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2683,4260,77053,123,125,124,13853,2512],"class_list":{"0":"post-160964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-desantis","9":"tag-james-uthmeier","10":"tag-levin-college-of-law","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-headlines","13":"tag-miami-news","14":"tag-professor","15":"tag-university-of-florida"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}