Sep. 25, 2024

Professor Ryan Vacca publishes article in Harvard journal

Ryan Vacca, the John D. Lawson Professor of Law at Mizzou Law, this week published a new article, Revisiting the Federal Circuit En Banc, in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. Professor Vacca’s article examines the recent move by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to abandon en banc review in utility law patents. The piece also evaluates the need for the court to revive its previous en banc practices to ensure an effective and consistent patent law landscape and to effectively guide patent stakeholders. En banc review is when all active judges…

Sep. 23, 2024

LLM Alumni Spotlight — Meet Mamello Victoria Kanapi

Discovering a fulfilling career path and obtaining the education to pursue that path can be a multi-year journey for many people. With the assistance of the University of Missouri School of Law LLM in Dispute Resolution program, Mamello Victoria Kanapi, ’24, managed to do both in less than two years.  Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Mamello began her higher education journey in Cape Town where she earned her law degree at the University of the Western Cape. While finishing her degree in South Africa, she applied for a scholarship program to earn her LLM at the University of Missouri. After…

Sep. 23, 2024

LLM Alumni Spotlight — Meet Mnotho Ngcobo

Growing up in South Africa, Mnotho Ngcobo, ’22, always knew he wanted to work in the U.S., though he was unsure of whether he wanted to pursue a profession in the field of law or education. As a Mizzou Law LLM graduate, and newly appointed assistant professor of law at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, Ngcobo found a way to do both. “I used to tell my friends to enjoy our time together because one day, I’d leave for the U.S.,” Ngcobo said. “When applying for college, I chose between a Bachelor of Laws…

Sep. 23, 2024

LLM Alumni Spotlight — Meet Jose Abel Quezada

Jose Abel Quezada, ’24, has known that he wanted to dedicate his life to solving legal disputes with alternative dispute resolution (ADR) since he began his career as a law clerk working on complex arbitration cases. Now working in ADR as an associate at Cacheaux, Cavasos & Newton in his native Monterrey, Mexico, Quezada can point back to that earlier time as a turning point in his career path. “I realized the potential of ADR in solving legal disputes; considering litigation is overall useful but it is definitely not always the best way to solve a dispute,” Quezada said. “I…

Sep. 18, 2024

Veterans Clinic staffer wins Missouri Bar Award

Eugene O’Loughlin, intake coordinator and veterans benefits specialist in the Veterans Clinic at the University of Missouri School of Law, today was awarded the 2024 Liberty Bell Award from the Missouri Bar Young Lawyers’ Section Council. The Liberty Bell Award acknowledges a non-lawyer or non-legal organization engaged in public service activities that enhance the legal community or are dedicated to the advancement of justice. O’Loughlin is the veteran advocacy coordinator at the Mizzou Law Veterans Clinic, which helps veterans with discharge upgrades and VA disability compensation appeals at the agency level and in federal appellate courts.

Sep. 17, 2024

Faculty Spotlight — Meet Eric Hintz

To poet John Donne, no man is an island. To Eric Hintz, one of Mizzou Law’s newest professors, no area of the law is, either. With an undergraduate degree in economics and a graduate degree in global security studies, Hintz has always enjoyed approaching academic questions from a trans-substantive perspective. “I really liked the interdisciplinary component of [the law], and the sort of aspect that you can be a generalist, and learn all sorts of different things,” Hintz said. “One of the meta points that I enjoyed about economics and global security studies was that you’re thinking about all…

Sep. 13, 2024

Faculty Spotlight — Meet Ryan Vacca

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…

Sep. 4, 2024

Alumni Spotlight — Meet Kristen Evans

Going into law school at the University of Missouri, Kristen Evans, ’22, already had her eyes on a coveted position after graduation: a federal clerkship. “I felt that it would be really resourceful to do,” Evans said. “[Judicial clerks] gain a lot of knowledge about how the courts work, and that includes learning the court system, learning how to cater your arguments, your motions, your orders, to judges’ preferences.” However, Evans felt discouraged by the pervasive message that clerkships were out of her reach. Outside of Evans’ friends and mentors at Mizzou Law, many emphasized the exclusivity of federal clerkships.

Aug. 23, 2024

Dean Sperino cited by U.S. Court of Appeals

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit cited two of Associate Dean Sandra Sperino’s articles in a case involving how causation principles apply to a statute. The Third Circuit cited Statutory Proximate Cause, 88 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1199 (2013) and The Causation Canon, 108 Iowa L. Rev. 703, 704 (2023). The case is U.S. v. Johnson, 2024 2024 WL 3883682 (Aug. 21, 2024). Dean Sperino’s article Revitalizing State Employment Discrimination Law, 20 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 545 (2013) was also cited by the Supreme Court of Connecticut this summer in its discussion of…

Aug. 22, 2024

Class of 2027 has highest credentials ever

Incoming 1Ls at Mizzou Law have achieved something no other Mizzou Law class has ever achieved. Their credentials (GPA and LSAT scores) are the highest ever on record for an incoming Mizzou Law class. Median GPA for the class of 2027 sits at a stellar 3.75, which is the highest mark in history at Mizzou Law. Further, the median LSAT score for the class sits at an excellent 160, which ties the highest mark ever. Congratulations to the promising Class of 2027!…