Dates of judicial service

• Appointed to the Supreme Court in March 2001
• Retained in office at the November 2002 general election and again at the November 2014 general election
  
• Retired March 8, 2021
  
• Served as chief justice for the term of July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2009
• Previously served as a judge on the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, from 1994 to March 2001

Education

• Graduated with honors from John Burroughs School, St. Louis, in 1971
• Studied at the University of Madrid through a program administered by the Institute of European Studies
• Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, Tufts University, Boston, 1975; National Merit Scholarship
• Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C., 1978

Prior employment

• Attorney, Shook, Hardy & Bacon law firm, Kansas City
• Partner, 1984 to 1994
• Associate, 1980 to 1984
• Co-founder and member, Appellate Practice Group
• Law Clerk to Supreme Court of Missouri Judge Robert E. Seiler, 1978 to 1979
• Iglauer Fellowship Intern in Washington D.C. for Senator Thomas Eagleton, 1973

Professional memberships and activities

• Member, The Missouri Bar, 1978 to present
• Chair, Civil Practice and Procedure Committee
• Vice chair, Civil Practice and Procedure Committee
• Member, American Bar Association (ABA)
• Member, Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association (KCMBA)
• Vice chair, Tort Law Committee
• Member, Association for Women Lawyers (AWL) of Greater Kansas City
• President
• Member, board of directors
• Missouri Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, 2004 to present
• Chair, Gender and Justice Joint Committee of The Missouri Bar and the Supreme Court of Missouri
• Speaker, appellate practice programs, annual conventions of the ABA, The Missouri Bar, Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys (MATA), and Missouri Organization of Defense Lawyers (MODL)
• Speaker or moderator, continuing legal education programs about civil procedure and evidence, for The Missouri Bar, KCMBA, AWL and University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School
• Speaker, gender bias programs, Missouri New Judges School

Civic and charitable activities

• Founding director, Lawyers Encouraging Academic Performance (LEAP), an inter-bar lawyers’ public service organization in Kansas City
• Mentor and tutor to young students at St. Vincent’s Operation Breakthrough in Kansas City

Awards and honors

• Joseph Stevens Aspire to Excellence Award, Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association, 2009
• Distinguished Non-Alumnus Award, University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, 2006
• Third-year editor, Law and Policy in International Business Journal, Georgetown University Law Center

Additional information

• Speeches:
  • 2009 State of the Judiciary Address to the Missouri General Assembly, January 2009
    
  • Address to The Missouri Bar, Judicial Conference in Kansas City, September 2008
  • 2008 State of the Judiciary Address to the Missouri General Assembly, February 2008
  • Address to The Missouri Bar, Judicial Conference in Springfield, September 2007
• Author:
• Contrast of State and Federal Court Authority to Grant Habeas Relief, 38 Valparaiso Law Rev. 421 (Spring 2004)
• Just Because You Can Measure Something, Does it Really Count? 58 Duke L.J. 1743 (2009)
• Co-author:
  
• The Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan: The Least Political Method of Selecting High Quality Judges, 74 Mo. L. Rev. 711 ( 2009)
• Born October 30, 1953, in St. Louis
• Married to fellow lawyer Donald G. Scott, a former law clerk for former Supreme Court of Missouri Judge Warren D. Welliver and now a shareholder in the law firm of McDowell, Rice, Smith and Buchanan, P.C., in Kansas City. They have three daughters.