May 12, 2022

Professor Bennett Discusses Federal Judges with Springfield TV station

“Judges aren’t allowed to pick their own cases, except for the United States Supreme Court, which has some control over which cases it hears. But district judges, federal trial judges, they take the cases that are filed before them, and they decide the cases that they’re presented with, explained University of Missouri Law School Professor Thomas Bennett.” To view the whole story, visit: https://www.ky3.com/2022/05/12/fact-finders-examining-power-federal-judge/

April 22, 2022

Paul Litton Named Interim Dean of Mizzou Law

University of Missouri Provost Latha Ramchand has announced that Paul Litton, associate dean for faculty research and R. B. Price Professor of Law will serve as interim dean of Mizzou Law. This appointment follows the announcement that Lyrissa Lidsky, dean and Judge C.A. Leedy Professor of Law at Mizzou Law will step down from the deanship on July 4. Dean Litton will assume the office on that day. “Over the last several weeks, we received input from a variety of constituents, including faculty, staff, and alumni, on the interim appointment,” said Provost Ramchand. “This collective input, along with Paul Litton’s…

April 20, 2022

Mizzou Law Announces Additional New Faculty Hires for Fall 2022

Officials at the University of Missouri School of Law are continuing the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the school by announcing two exciting new faculty hires joining the ranks of the nationally renowned faculty scholars and teachers at Mizzou Law. Lauren Shores Pelikan, a senior manager of global tax planning at Emerson in St. Louis and Yunsieg P. Kim, a law clerk at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, will be joining the faculty at Mizzou Law in time to begin teaching classes in the Fall 2022 semester. “We are thrilled to welcome these accomplished…

April 12, 2022

MU professor says Google v. Oracle case leaves fair use ‘muddy’

The case of Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. pitted two giant technology companies against each other. On the line was potentially billions of dollars in profits as well as the future of some of the world’s most widely used pieces of software. After more than a decade of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that Google did not violate copyright laws by including 11,500 lines of code from Java (which is owned by Oracle) in its own Android operating system. It was the first time the court updated fair use precedents since 1994 and one of the…

March 16, 2022

Professor Oliveri Named Women’s and Gender Studies Alumnae Anniversary Award

Rigel Oliver, the Isabelle Wade and Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law at Mizzou Law, was honored March 15 with a 2022 MU Women’s and Gender Studies Alumnae Anniversary Award. The award was given by the MU Department of Women’s and Gender Studies for Prof. Oliveri’s impressive networking and advocacy work across campus. Congratulations to Prof. Oliveri!.

March 16, 2022

Dean Emeritus Dessem Publishes Op-Ed on Refuting LSAT Scores’ Relevance for Judge Appointments

R. Lawrence Dessem, Mizzou Law Dean Emeritus and Timothy J. Heinsz Professor Emeritus, published an Op-Ed piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In his piece, Dessem refutes attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court based on her Law School Admission Test (LSAT) score decades earlier. To read Dean Dessem’s full piece, visit: https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/columnists/dessem-an-admissions-exam-has-zero-relevance-on-judge-brown-jacksons-qualifications/article_ec8920a9-8864-53ba-ad12-406db3369f9d.html…

March 11, 2022

Professor Oliveri Wins Outstanding Volunteer Service Award

Rigel Oliveri, the Isabelle Wade and Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law, has received the 11th Howard B. Lang, Jr. Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service to the City of Columbia. Professor Oliveri earned the award due to her involvement with fair and affordable housing programs and services, which includes her work with the Columbia Housing Authority and other agencies and programs. She currently serves on the Columbia Housing Authority Board and works on providing support services for low-income, public housing residents in Columbia in order to help them improve the quality of…

Feb. 8, 2022

Faculty Spotlight — Thomas Bennett

Starting a new job in the middle of a pandemic can be challenging at best. But when that job includes teaching students without ever meeting them face-to-face, “challenging” may be an understatement. For Professor Thomas Bennett, Mizzou Law’s newest faculty member, finally getting to step foot in a classroom this fall was a vast improvement over how he spent his first year teaching at Mizzou. Bennett, an associate professor of law and a Wall Family Fellow at the University of Missouri School of Law, began teaching at Mizzou in 2020 when most Mizzou Law classes took place over Zoom. Now…

Feb. 3, 2022

Mizzou Law Announces New Faculty Hires for Fall 2022

Officials at the University of Missouri School of Law are kicking off the 150th anniversary of the school by announcing two exciting new faculty hires joining the ranks of the nationally renowned faculty scholars and teachers at Mizzou Law. Sandra Sperino, a professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, and Rachel Wechsler, a research fellow at the New York University School of Law, will be joining the faculty at Mizzou Law in time to begin teaching classes in the Fall 2022 semester. “We are so excited to welcome these accomplished legal experts to our faculty,” said Lyrissa Lidsky,…

Dec. 7, 2021

MU researchers say it’s time to clean up the Clean Water Act

By Kenny Gerling, MU News Bureau In 1969, the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland was so polluted that it caught fire, helping to launch the modern environmental movement and prompting Congress to pass the Clean Water Act three years later. It was one of the first laws to safeguard waterways and set national water quality standards. While the Clean Water Act successfully regulated many obvious causes of pollution, such as the dumping of wastewater, it’s done less to limit more diffuse types of pollution, such as “nonpoint source pollution” that includes agricultural runoff from fields and urban stormwater from buildings,…