Dec. 26, 2022

LLM Alumni Spotlight — Flavia Fragale

In the United States, it’s nearly impossible to imagine becoming a judge before turning 25 years old. In Brazil, moving from law school directly to a judgeship is fairly common. For Flavia Fragale, LLM ‘05, ‘19, she became a judge at just 24. After growing up in Vitória, Brazil, she was admitted to a law program at the University of São Paulo, the oldest and most recognized law school in Brazil. “Law school in Brazil is a graduate course that lasts five years,” Fragale said. “There is no college before it— you finish high school and apply directly to law…

Dec. 13, 2022

Faculty Fellow Haley Proctor Publishes Paper in Yale Law Journal Forum

After U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement this summer, legal experts and analysts across the country have reflected on Breyer’s legacy of pragmatic and thoughtful leadership. Haley Proctor, a faculty fellow at Mizzou Law and the MU Kinder Institute for Constitutional Democracy, had the opportunity to collaborate with long-time mentor and retired federal circuit judge Thomas Griffith on an article for the Yale Law Journal Forum. The article, which was published in late November, tracks the past, present and future of the Major Questions Doctrine and its relationship to Justice Breyer’s jurisprudence. “The Major Questions Doctrine first emerged…

Dec. 9, 2022

Professor Oliveri participates in NAACP public housing forum

On Dec. 7, Rigel Oliveri, the Isabelle Wade and Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law at Mizzou Law, participated in a forum hosted by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Thurgood Marshall Institute on Protecting and Expanding Public Housing. The invitation-only forum was held at the NAACP’s offices in New York and Washington, DC. The forum, which included former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, brought together scholars, advocates, and other experts to discuss ways to reimagine public housing to better provide for the…

Dec. 8, 2022

Associate Dean Sperino Provides Training to Federal Judges

Sandra Sperino, the associate dean for research and faculty development and the Elwood L. Thomas Missouri Endowed Professor at Mizzou Law serves as a faculty member for the Federal Judicial Center. The Federal Judicial Center is the research and education agency of the judicial branch of the U.S. government. On Dec. 5, Professor Sperino gave a 90-minute presentation at the Phase II Orientation Seminar for U.S. District Judges in Washington D.C. She discussed cutting edge issues in discrimination law and the recently enacted Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act. In late October, Dean Sperino conducted…

Dec. 6, 2022

Faculty Spotlight — Meet Yunsieg Kim

Yunsieg Kim was a self-proclaimed terrible law student. “I studied more coding and computer science than law. It’s a wonder I never failed my law courses,” Kim recalled of his time at Yale University, where he got his law degree. “The law seemed to be either outdated or just fundamentally incompatible with a lot of technological developments,” Kim said. “This was my impression going in, and that held up.” Having grown up in South Korea, Kim completed his bachelor’s degree at Dartmouth before collecting what he calls his “basket of graduate degrees” in fields ranging from a doctorate in…

Dec. 1, 2022

Professor Emeritus Esbeck Publishes Op-Ed on Respect for Marriage Act

Carl Esbeck, the R.B. Price Professor Emeritus and Isabelle Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor Emeritus of Law, has published an op-ed in Christianity Today in favor of the bipartisan Respect for Marriage Act, which recently passed in Congress. Additionally, prior to the vote on the bill, Professor Emertus Esbeck co-authored a letter to Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Tammy Baldwin. In the letter, Esbeck, along with fellow constitutional law experts Douglas Laycock from the University of Virginia, Thomas Berg from the University of St. Thomas, and Robin Fretwell Wilson from the University of Illinois, urged the senators…

Nov. 29, 2022

Legal Lion

By Marcus Wilkins At first, Zarifullah Darkhily assumed the explosions echoing through the halls of Kabul University were automobile backfire in the streets of Afghanistan’s capital city. In reality, terrorists had breached the building on Nov. 2, 2020. For the young professor and his contemporaries, it was their darkest day “I thought of my family and my friends,” said Darkhily, who was head of the institution’s public policy and administration department at the time. “I thought briefly of how I was at this university trying to be useful to my people. But mostly I thought about getting to safety.” Darkhily…

Nov. 14, 2022

Prof. Barondes Publishes Source Materials for Statutes on Federal and Missouri Firearms Law

Prof. Royce Barondes has published with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing books collecting primary source materials (mostly statutes) on Federal and Missouri firearms law. In the fall, he authored a casebook for use in Contracts 1, sold to Mizzou Law students through Amazon.com for substantially less than the prices charged for casebooks customarily used in Contracts 1. Federal: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLRCXJ92 Missouri: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLZWSL97

Nov. 9, 2022

Mizzou Law Students, Professor Submit Amicus Brief for SCOTUS Cases

A national team of attorneys along with a team of Mizzou Law students have co-written an amicus curiae brief filed by the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys with the U.S. Supreme Court in Haaland v. Brackeen. Mizzou Law students burned much midnight oil research the issues while meeting the time deadline and word count imposed by SCOTUS. Two of the brief’s student authors, Betsy Smith and Logan Moore, are traveling to Washington, DC to watch in-person when SCOTUS hears the three cases on Nov. 9. Passed by Congress in 1978, ICWA mandates that states notify tribes when entertaining…

Nov. 3, 2022

Alumni Spotlight– Meet Judge-Elect Kayla Jackson-Williams

By Anna Sago With local and midterm elections coming up soon, the unopposed candidate for associate circuit judge in Boone County is already clear. When elected this November, Judge-Elect Kayla Jackson-Williams, an alumna of Mizzou Law, ‘16, will be the first Black Boone County judge in its more than 200-year history. “I didn’t realize how monumental that would be,” said Jackson-Williams. “I was at Roots & Blues with my daughter, and this little girl, maybe 8 years old, said, ‘Mommy, that’s that Black judge.’ and they walked over, and her mom said, ‘I’m sorry, we talk about you a lot,…