About Jayne Woods

Professor Woods teaches primarily first-year legal writing courses. She began teaching at Mizzou Law as an adjunct in 2007 and joined the faculty full-time in Fall 2022. In addition to her current courses, she has taught Appellate Advocacy, Moot Court I, and Moot Court II. She is also a regular contributor to the Appellate Advocacy Blog.

Professor Woods has been (and continues to be) a law clerk for the Honorable Karen King Mitchell on the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, since 2011. Before that, she was an Assistant Attorney General for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office in the Criminal Appeals Division, where she wrote and submitted approximately 400 appellate briefs and argued multiple cases before each district of the Missouri Court of Appeals, as well as the Missouri Supreme Court. She has also served as both a Court Appointed Special Advocate for children in Missouri’s Thirteenth Judicial Circuit and a member of the local Citizens Police Review Board.

Her undergraduate degree is in Justice Systems, and, while in law school, she was a member of the editorial board for Missouri Law Review and a teaching assistant for the Legal Research and Writing Program.

Her awards include the David J. Dixon Appellate Advocacy Award from the Missouri Bar Foundation, the Attorney General’s Best Brief Award from former Attorney General Chris Koster, the Faculty Achievement Award from MU’s Board of Advocates, and 1L Faculty of the Year from MU’s Student Bar Association.

Educational Background

• BS, Truman State University, 2002
• JD, University of Missouri, 2005