Professor David Mitchell awarded the 2023 Kemper Award for Teaching Excellence

Latha Ramchand, University of Missouri provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, and Steve Sowers, CEO Missouri Community Markets today awarded a 2023 William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence to S. David Mitchell. Mitchell is the Ruth L. Hulston Professor of Law and co-director of the Michael A. Middleton Center for Race, Citizenship and Justice. Interim Dean of the School of Law Paul Litton today joined other administrators surprising Mitchell by honoring him with the fellowship, which includes a $15,000 check. Kemper Fellowships are awarded to five outstanding teachers at the University of Missouri each year. The…

Mizzou Law 3L Named National Jurist “Law Student of the Year”

Mizzou Law student Brandon Bethel (3L) has been named a 2023 Law Student of the Year by the National Jurist Magazine. Brandon has made a remarkable impact on Hulston Hall in his nearly three years as a Mizzou Law student. “Since the day he stepped onto campus, Brandon has single-handedly improved the physical space of Mizzou Law, improving the lives of his fellow students and our entire community,” said Interim Dean Paul Litton said. “In my seventeen years at Mizzou Law, we have not seen a student make a greater impact on our community.” Brandon is a passionate advocate…

MU Innocence Clinic, Midwest Innocence Project Helps Overturn Conviction of Innocent Man

Thanks to students from the University of Missouri School of Law Innocence Clinic and work from attorneys at the Midwest Innocence Project, the 1995 convictions of Lamar Johnson have been overturned. “Lamar Johnson’s exoneration shows how incredibly difficult it is to overturn a wrongful conviction and how there is a role for everyone in that process,” said Chelseá Mitchell, director of the MU Innocence Clinic. “Students in the MU Innocence Clinic are a lifeline for an incarcerated person, providing hope in dark times. And through their contact, clinic students learn the real life consequences of legal decisions, an experience they…

Mizzou Law Hires New Executive Director of Advancement

Chelsea Coursey joins the University of Missouri School of Law on March 1 as Executive Director of Advancement. In this role, Coursey will lead all fundraising and alumni engagement initiatives at Mizzou Law. With nearly ten years of experience in higher education fundraising, she comes to Mizzou from Purdue University where she was the Chief Development Officer of the College of Education. During her time at Purdue, Chelsea increased giving totals within her academic unit from under $700,000 annually to above $4,000,000 in FY 22. She secured a gift to name the deanship of education as well as several professorships,…

Mizzou Law Launches Online LLM Program in Spanish

Mizzou Law and the MU Center for Study of Dispute Resolution (CSDR) have a history of setting precedent. With that history, and some fortuitous timing, the center at Mizzou Law launched the first fully online, asynchronous LLM program in dispute resolution just before the pandemic began in 2020. The program was intended to make the LLM accessible to those who could not afford or were not able to come to Columbia for the residential program. Just four years later, Mizzou Law is now offering that same trailblazing asynchronous LLM program in dispute resolution taught entirely in Spanish. “We identified two…

Mizzou Law Announces New Faculty Hire for Winter 2023

Officials at the University of Missouri School of Law are thrilled to announce the exciting new hire of Ryan Snyder to join the nationally renowned faculty scholars and teachers at Mizzou Law. Professor Snyder has joined the faculty at Mizzou Law this winter. “We are thrilled to welcome Professor Snyder to our faculty,” said Paul Litton, interim dean and R.B. Price Professor of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law. “He brings a wealth of fascinating and high-level legal experience, having worked at the United States Supreme Court, a multinational law firm, and the Department of Justice.

Mizzou Law Students, Professor Submit Amicus Brief for SCOTUS Cases

A national team of attorneys along with a team of Mizzou Law students have co-written an amicus curiae brief filed by the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys with the U.S. Supreme Court in Haaland v. Brackeen. Mizzou Law students burned much midnight oil research the issues while meeting the time deadline and word count imposed by SCOTUS. Two of the brief’s student authors, Betsy Smith and Logan Moore, are traveling to Washington, DC to watch in-person when SCOTUS hears the three cases on Nov. 9. Passed by Congress in 1978, ICWA mandates that states notify tribes when entertaining…

Mizzou Law Blazing Trails for 150 Years

To honor its rich tradition of excellent legal education over its 150 years of existence, Mizzou Law is proud to launch its newest project, the Mizzou Law Trailblazers timeline. The timeline honors dozens of “trailblazers” throughout the school’s past and present who achieved amazing things and are continuing to make an impact; it also highlights several notable events in Mizzou Law’s long history. The timeline is the brainchild of Professor S. David Mitchell and law librarian Cindy Bassett. The project was inspired by a law student mentioning that students who attend the law school that denied admission…

A Historic Success!

Mizzou football wasn’t the only team working overtime this weekend. This year, Mizzou’s law school rings in its 150th anniversary. To celebrate, members of a planning committee organized a watch party for the Saturday morning Mizzou-Auburn game. “The 150th only comes around once,” said Bob Langdon, ‘72. “We had a lot of people involved. It’s just a chance for the law students to come back, meet everybody, and see what’s going on- there’s a lot of great things going on in the law school.” The event had 21 community sponsors. The event was held in the Hearnes Center auditorium,…

Mizzou Law 2022 Missouri Bar Passage Rates

The Supreme Court of Missouri just released the results of the July 2022 Missouri Bar Exam. University of Missouri School of Law’s 93% passage rate for our first-time bar takers is above the overall state passage rate of 88% and is the second-highest out of seven regional law schools. Mizzou Law is committed to continuing to have exemplary bar passage and employment rates in the state of Missouri, as well as nationwide. We congratulate all who passed the exam. We are committed to providing resources for all our graduates to attain future success in their chosen careers.