Published on Sep. 13, 2024
When Ryan Vacca, ‘04, gave his first guest lecture to students studying the entertainment business at St. Louis Community College, the then-attorney at Stinson LLP began considering going back to school — as a professor.
“I could see the light bulb was going off [for students,]” Vacca recalled. “They understood it and were asking great questions. It was a lot of fun, and at that point, I started thinking maybe academia might be for me.”
Becoming a law professor was a far cry from what Vacca originally planned to pursue as an undergraduate at Amherst College, where he entered as a computer science major.
“I accidentally stumbled into the law, but immediately fell in love with it and looking at the intersection of technology and law and how they interact,” he said. “So eventually I decided that I was going to go to law school.”
After graduating with degrees in both computer science and law, jurisprudence and social thought, the native St. Louisan decided to return to his home state to study at Mizzou Law where he continued to pursue a career at the intersection of technology and law: intellectual property.
Mizzou Law associate dean of enrollment management and financial aid and fellow 2004 Mizzou Law alumnus JR Swanegan met Vacca when the pair were beginning their law school journeys.
“Ryan and I met our first day of law school orientation, we were lined up alphabetically for registration and were separated by one or two people,” Swanegan said. “We all started talking and became friends almost immediately.”
The two remained close throughout law school, studying in small groups together and playing basketball at the Mizzou Rec after class.
Swanegan said he’s excited to have his classmate back at the law school, particularly because of the role Vacca will play in admissions.
“I’ve always been impressed with Ryan’s intellect and am not at all surprised that he has successfully pursued a career as an academic,” Swanegan said. “I’m really excited to be working with him again and he will be an integral part of the recruitment of future Mizzou Law students as the newly appointed chair of the law school admissions committee.”
After graduating, Vacca landed a position at Stinson LLP working on various product liability and intellectual property issues, from general counseling to litigation.
At a client’s request, Vacca accepted an opportunity to deliver that fateful guest lecture and, after a brief detour to NYU to obtain his LLM, he has been teaching at law schools across the country and the world ever since. He has taught courses in Australia and China and regularly speaks to attorneys in South America, India, and China.
His research – primarily on intellectual property and judicial administration – was another element of faculty life that drew him into academia.
“What I really enjoy is being in the library researching the minutia of some topic,” he said. “Being able to advance how we think about the law and administer justice is incredibly rewarding,” Vacca explained.
Ultimately, his desire to be close to family, his relationships with Mizzou Law faculty, and the school’s outstanding reputation brought him back to the Show Me State.
“The law school has been doing phenomenal things over the years,” Vacca said. “It has great students, the faculty that are either still here or that have joined since I left have been remarkable, and so the opportunity to be able to join this faculty, to collaborate with fantastic colleagues, and to work with some of the best students that we’ve ever had was just a great opportunity.”