Mary M. Beck

• Family violence
• Advocacy, family violence and public policy
• Client interviewing and counseling
• Child adoption law
• Putative father registry law

Professor Mary Beck taught in Schools of Nursing and Medicine for 13 years before joining the Missouri University law faculty in 1993 as Director of the Family Violence Clinic. The clinic is a law school based practice wherein Mary supervises Rule 13 certified law students representing indigent domestic violence victims, dying custodial parents, and national and international families with disabled children.

Presently, Mary's Family Violence Clinic students represent parties in civil, juvenile and probate courts in over 35 Missouri Counties. In the law school, Mary teaches the Family Violence Clinic; Advocacy, Family Violence and Public Policy; Adoption, Assisted Reproductive Techniques and Guardianship; and Client Interviewing and Counseling.

Mary has served as a faculty member and administrator in schools of nursing and medicine and worked as a certified family nurse practitioner at Missouri University Hospital and Clinics, the Columbia Free Clinic, and other publicly funded walk in clinics.

Mary's service includes drafting multi state and federal legislation involving birth parents' rights, adoption of children, stand by guardianship, and domestic violence, as well as writing Amicus Curiae briefs to state courts and the United States Supreme Court. Mary was an original member of the Missouri Battered Women's Clemency Coalition and has participated in domestic violence clemency advocacy and litigation. Her students who worked on Clemency were the first law students ever to appear and argue (successfully) before the Missouri Supreme Court.

Mary's has published research is in the areas of congenital cardiac defects, domestic violence, and adoption in law reviews, adoption books, and in Bar Journals. Her work on putative father registry law has led to an appearance on CNN's Anderson Cooper and mention in the NY Times. She has obtained state and federal grants to fund student representation of domestic violence victims and to fund multidisciplinary empirical research into Missouri's police, prosecutorial, and judicial responses to domestic violence. The latter led to television, newsprint, and radio series on Missouri's domestic violence responses and related Missouri Bar Journal articles.

Mary is married to Niels Beck and they have 4 children in 3 states, 2 sons in law, 1 daughter in law, and 7 grandchildren.

Recent Publications