Mizzou Law 3L and Entrepreneur Opens Pop-Up Shop

Parker Owens, a Mizzou Law 3L student, entrepreneur and winner of the Mizzou Entrepreneur Quest Student Accelerator competition last fall, is opening a pop-up store for his business, Parker’s Brick Builds. The store will open from 9:30 a.m.- 2 p.m. on Feb. 21 in the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the MU Trulaske College of Business. Owens’ business, Parker’s Brick Builds, offers custom Lego kits to retailers and online to individuals.

Graduation Spotlight — Meet Avery Welker

Law school can be many things: exciting, stressful, scary, competitive— but only a select few would describe the experience as “fun.” And yet, that was the word that came to 3L Avery Welker’s mind when describing his three years at Mizzou Law. “I started my undergraduate career in fall of 2011, and this three-year span has been the most fun I’ve ever had in school,” Welker said. Originally hailing from southeast Missouri, Welker grew up around his grandfather’s propane business. He always knew that he wanted to go into petroleum engineering, so he began working towards his undergraduate degree in…

Graduation Spotlight — Meet Wensdai Brooks

When soon-to-be law school graduate Wensdai Brooks began looking for a college to attend, she decided to heed her grandfather’s advice and move from her hometown of Santa Cruz, California to an out-of-state university. That’s how Brooks ended up in Columbia, Missouri— and after four years of undergraduate studies followed by three years of law school, there’s no place she’d rather be. “It’s been amazing,” Brooks said. “A lot of it has been the community. All of us are really a family. We all actually, genuinely love and care about each other.” During her time at Mizzou Law, Brooks brought…

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…

Two Rising Mizzou Law 2Ls are Prestigious 2022 Rural Summer Legal Corps Fellows

Robert Lass and Autumn Westhoff, rising Mizzou Law 2L students, have been selected and are currently participating in the 2022 Rural Summer Legal Corps Fellowship. Each summer, Equal Justice Works selects 40 highly qualified law students from 36 law schools across the country to serve in the program. The program partners with the Legal Services Corporation to support law students who want to give back to rural communities across the United and its territories. Student fellows spend eight-to-10 weeks during the summer exploring a career in civil legal aid, by providing direct legal services and building capacity at…

Mizzou Law Chapter of ACS Named “Student Chapter of the Year”

The American Constitution Society (ACS) has named the Mizzou Law student chapter of ACS as the “Student Chapter of the Year.” In their newsletter announcement of the award, the ACS said the Mizzou Law chapter won by exhibiting “the greatest strength in meeting ACS’s mission and goals.” Rising Mizzou Law 3L and Chapter President Hirsh Joshi says winning this award was a goal for the chapter all year and was a result of extraordinary hard work. “Winning it all is hard to digest because there are other incredible chapters at other law schools,” Joshi said. “We came away with…

Mizzou Law Hoods 98 Students in Class of 2022

On May 15, Mizzou Law celebrated the graduation of 98 students, 92 with Juris Doctor (JD) degrees and six with Master of Laws (LLM) degrees. Here is a little more about this amazing graduating class: The six LLM graduates come from three states (Alabama, Tennessee and Michigan) and five countries (U.S., South Africa, Nigeria, Grenada, and Yemen.) The 92 JD graduates hail from 12 different states and two countries (U.S. and India).Here are the states they come from: Arkansas California Idaho Illinois Kansas Maryland Missouri North Carolina New York Pennsylvania Texas Vermont Further, more than 10% of the 2022 graduating…

Seizing opportunities

Mnotho Ngcobo has always been ambitious, hardworking, motivated and optimistic. But even he was surprised by the positive chain of events that led him to the University of Missouri en route to a master of laws degree. Ngcobo’s Tiger story started in May 2021 with the news that he had landed the prestigious Ivan Rugema Fellowship, a program that brings students from the University of the Western Cape to Mizzou. Ngcobo — who grew up in Durban, a city in KZN province of South Africa — had applied to numerous scholarship programs only to receive rejection letters. “I felt like…

Making a Difference One Can of Paint at a Time

Painting walls, refinishing furniture, building bookshelves: activities not commonly associated with earning a legal education. For Mizzou Law 2L Brandon Bethel however, working to improve his environment is something that comes second nature to him. “It really serves as a creative outlet for me,” Bethel said. “Much of law school doesn’t tap that creative vein, so redesigning spaces to improve our learning and living environment helps serve that purpose for me.” In his less than two years at Mizzou Law, Bethel has been a driving force in improving the physical environment throughout Hulston Hall. Reimagining the space in in the…

Mizzou Law 3L in Washington DC to Support Confirmation of Supreme Court Judge

Niya Young, a Mizzou Law 3L, is spending the week in Washington to support the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the next U.S. Supreme Court justice. Young is joining more than 100 law students from 17 law schools around the country to raise their voices in support of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to sit on the USSC. “As a soon to be public defender, it was important for me to travel to DC to support and celebrate the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court,”…