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 “The law seemed to be either outdated or just fundamentally incompatible with a lot of technological developments,” Kim said.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,…

Nov. 2, 2022

Are Drug Companies the Villain?

For years, brand drug companies have been villainized for “evergreening” or manipulating the law to extend the period of exclusivity for drugs beyond their 20-year patent — a practice critics say unfairly prevents competition from generic drug companies and that has prompted legislators to consider significant reform to policies that govern the pharmaceutical industry. But an audit of more than 200 drugs by a University of Missouri researcher found generic versions of all the drugs were available before their patents expired, raising questions about data being used by policymakers to prove evergreening exists. According to the new study, a comprehensive…

Oct. 12, 2022

Mizzou Law Blazing Trails for 150 Years

To honor its rich tradition of excellent legal education over its 150 years of existence, Mizzou Law is proud to launch its newest project, the Mizzou Law Trailblazers timeline. The timeline honors dozens of “trailblazers” throughout the school’s past and present who achieved amazing things and are continuing to make an impact; it also highlights several notable events in Mizzou Law’s long history. The timeline is the brainchild of Professor S. David Mitchell and law librarian Cindy Bassett. The project was inspired by a law student mentioning that students who attend the law school that denied admission…

Oct. 4, 2022

Staff Spotlight — Meet Sarah Reesman

Bright lights. The roar of a crowd. The sound of the marching band and the announcer echoing across the field. These are all things typically associated with Mizzou Athletics. One thing that might not come to mind? The law. While Sarah Reesman loved the nearly three decades she spent working in the Mizzou athletics department, she jumped at the opportunity to move to Mizzou Law’s Career Development Office. She is excited to begin counseling students, helping them narrow down their legal and professional interests and find non-traditional career opportunities similar to the one she found in athletics. After Sarah Reesman…

Oct. 3, 2022

Prof. David English Honored as ABA Advocate of the Month

David English, the William Franklin Fratcher Endowed Professor of Law and the Edward L Jenkins Professor of Law at the MU School of Law, was honored as the September Advocate of the Month by the American Bar Association in their monthly Washington Letter newsletter. From the ABA’s Washington Letter: “We are proud to honor David English as our Advocate of the Month for September 2022 for his work on reforming the nation’s guardianship system, a task on which he has been continually engaged since 1987. He currently serves as Chair of the National Guardianship Network, which is a coalition of…