Oct. 14, 2021

Mizzou Law Receives $1 Million Gift to Honor Former Professor

Stephen F Hanlon, ’66, has pledged a $1 million gift to the University of Missouri School of Law to create the Professor William P. Murphy Scholarship. The scholarship, honoring former Mizzou Law professor William Murphy, will support students seeking to become constitutional lawyers. Stephen F Hanlon speaks about Professor Murphy at the gift announcement in Jesse Hall. Professor William Murphy taught constitutional law at Mizzou from 1962-71 and was a key figure in supporting the right to peaceful protest by students on campus. Throughout his academic career he was known for his staunch support for civil rights, including…

Sep. 29, 2021

Paul Litton co-authors research study on how past suffering can result in future praise

A team of researchers at Mizzou, including Paul Litton, the associate dean for faculty research and R. B. Price Professor of Law at Mizzou Law, have discovered that people tend to give more praise to someone for their good deeds as an adult after discovering that person has also had to overcome adversity or suffering earlier in life, such as abuse and neglect as a child. Litton collaborated with Philip Robbins, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy in the MU College of Arts and Science. They say these findings can help to narrow a knowledge gap…

Sep. 28, 2021

LLM Alumna Spotlight — Tojan Rahhal

The fields of engineering and dispute resolution may not seem to be a natural combination. For Tojan Rahhal, ’20, however, the LLM in Dispute Resolution program at the University of Missouri School of Law was the perfect transition to prepare her for a leadership position in the engineering field. Now serving as CEO and President of Engineering World Health, Rahhal says that the LLM program inspired her to “think outside of the box,” and encouraged her to leverage her skillset to her current position. Rahhal first came to Mizzou for a position at the College of Engineering.  She had previously…

Sep. 28, 2021

LLM Alumnus Spotlight — Sentebale Makara

Living in his home of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sentebale Makara, ’11, is enjoying a flourishing career as the director at the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright South Africa. He specializes in construction, engineering, mining and energy disputes with experience in arbitration procedures and alternative dispute resolution. Makara attributes much of his success to his time at Mizzou Law, where he earned his LLM in Dispute Resolution. “As a direct result of the opportunities and doors opened by the LLM program, I am today a qualified mediator,” Makara said. During his time at Mizzou, Makara said he gained confidence in his…

Sep. 28, 2021

LLM Alumnus Spotlight — Jose Rodriguez

Nearly a decade ago, Jose Dario Rodriguez, LLM ’15, realized the importance of commercial relations and the need to use alternative mechanisms for dispute resolution. Now serving as legal counsel of international contractor China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd. in Panama, Rodriguez credits his move to Columbia, Missouri to learn at one of the top dispute resolution centers in the world with gaining those necessary skills and knowledge. “I chose the University of Missouri beyond any other school, after a long research time, finding that Mizzou Law is not only one of the top five dispute resolution programs in United States,…

Sep. 14, 2021

Prof. David Mitchell Honored with the Spurgeon Smithson Award by the Missouri Bar Foundation

S. David Mitchell, the Ruth L. Hulston Professor of Law and co-director of the Michael A. Middleton Center for Race, Citizenship and Justice, was one of three people honored with the 2021 Spurgeon Smithson Award by the Missouri Bar Foundation. Established in 1976, the Spurgeon Smithson Awards recognize judges, law teachers, and/or lawyers who have provided outstanding services toward the increase and diffusion of justice. The Missouri Bar Foundation Board of Trustees selects the recipients, and each award recipient receives a $2,000 stipend. “I find the teaching of the law to be a privilege and am humbled and thankful to be able…

Aug. 30, 2021

Prof. Lietzen named Best Lawyer in America in FDA and Biotechnology & Life Sciences Law

Professor Erika Lietzan has again been named a “Best Lawyer in America”  in both FDA Law and Biotechnology & Life Sciences.  This marks the eighth year in a row for FDA Law and the fourteenth year in a row for Biotechnology Law.  The Best Lawyers honor is meant to identify the top 5 percent of attorneys in the United States, and it is based on the judgment of one’s peers.  Professor Lietzan practiced law for 18 years prior to joining the University of Missouri in 2014, including eight years as a partner in the Food and Drug group of Covington…

Aug. 26, 2021

Associate Dean Litton and Colleagues Publish Work on Moral Judgment

Associate Dean Litton and co-authors Philip Robbins and Fernando Alvear of Mizzou’s Philosophy Department have published their new set of studies on the relationship between perceptions of an agent’s life history and moral judgments of that agent’s conduct. In this article, Good Deeds and Hard Knocks: The Effect of Past Suffering on Praise for Moral Behavior, the authors focused on an under-theorized area of moral judgment, praise and reward, as most research on moral judgment has focused on blame and punishment. The researchers designed their studies to test conflicting predictions implied by different psychological theories of moral judgment. Contrary to…

Aug. 24, 2021

Prof. Dennis Crouch and Mizzou Law student present at 2021 BYU symposium

On August 19, Professor Dennis Crouch and Dr. Homayoon Rafatijo (MU Law 3L) jointly presented their manuscript titled “States Can Infringe upon Your Intellectual Property Rights with Impunity in the Era of ‘New Federalism,” at the 2021 BYU Copyright and Trademark Symposium.  The article criticizes the Supreme Court’s 2020 sovereign immunity decision in Allen v. Cooper, looking primarily through a lens of Constitutional history.  They plan to publish the article later this year.

Aug. 23, 2021

Mizzou Law Welcomes First Majority Female Class in History, Largest Class Since 2010

As classes begin, Mizzou Law is excited and proud to welcome the incoming 1L class of 2024 to campus. This class of amazing students and future successful lawyers is historic in many ways. For the first time in the history of the MU School of Law, the incoming class is majority female, with 51% of the 2024 cohort identifying as women. Additionally, as the school continues to grow, the class of 2024 is the largest incoming class since 2010. Incoming 1Ls in the class of 2024 volunteering at the food bank. Beyond, and perhaps even more impressive than these…