Associate Teaching Professor
Professor Coon is an associate teaching professor of law and academic excellence specialist, working in the office of academic excellence at Mitchell Hamline. Professor Coon teaches the courses offered by the office of academic excellence, which include Legal Methods, Bar Preparation Strategies: MPT, and Bar Preparation Strategies: MBE/MEE. Professor Coon also provides one-on-one instruction to students, providing academic support throughout law school as well as bar preparation support. For Professor Coon, these courses are the cornerstone of legal education because they focus on skills that are essential to succeed in your first-year law school courses, throughout law school, on the bar exam, and in the practice of law: growth mindset, critical reading, case briefing, outlining, legal analysis, IRAC, health and wellness, and professionalism. Legal employers do not expect law school graduates to have memorized the law; but, they do expect graduates to know how to read, think, write, otherwise communicate, and be licensed.
“Shouldn’t my work be more meaningful and my community be more connected? … The [people] asking these questions … are stalking the periphery of their lives, feeling discontent. To me, this is exciting, because discontent is the nagging of the imagination. Discontent is evidence that your imagination has not given up on you. It is still pressing, swelling, trying to get your attention by whispering: ‘Not this.’ ‘Not this’ is a very important stage. But knowing what we do not want is not the same as knowing what we do want. So how can we get from Not this to This instead? How can we move from feeling discontent to creating new lives and new worlds? In other words: How can we begin to live from our imagination instead of our indoctrination? Language is my favorite tool, so I use it to help people build a bridge between what’s in front of them and what’s inside of them. I have learned that if we want to hear the voice of imagination, we must speak to it in the language it understands. If we want to know who we were meant to be before the world told us who to be—If we want to know where we were meant to go before we were put in our place—If we want to taste freedom instead of control—Then we must relearn our soul’s native tongue.”
—Glennon Doyle, “Untamed”
Welcome to the Mitchell Hamline law school community. I am eager to meet you and learn what brings you to the legal profession. I look forward to working with you on your law school journey, teaching you how to use my favorite tools: language and writing. I take a personable, empathetic approach with my students to help you understand how to effectively communicate the law and its applications to bring what you imagine to life. Legal training is a grueling process that requires commitment and hard work, namely with respect to reading and writing. But more importantly, it requires you. Remain true to yourself on this journey. The legal profession needs you.
Education
J.D., pro bono society honors, University of Iowa College of Law; editor, Iowa Law Review
B.A., English literature and legal studies, comprehensive honors, honors in English major, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Experience
Mitchell Hamline School of Law: associate teaching professor of law, 2021–; academic excellence specialist, 2018–; adjunct professor, tutor, 2017–18
Host of the CLEO Pre-Law Summer Institute, Program leader, Academic skills and support lecturer, Council on Legal Education Opportunity, 2023
Instructional mediator, Council on Legal Education Opportunity, 2019
University of Minnesota: associate adjunct professor of legal research and writing, 2017–20
Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky Wotkyns: associate attorney, 2014–17
Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco: legal research attorney, 2012–14
Milwaukee County Circuit Court, staff attorney, Judge Maxine A. White, 2010–12
Leadership and Service
Faculty Curriculum committee, Mitchell Hamline School of Law, 2020-
Faculty Clerkship committee, Mitchell Hamline School of Law, 2021 –
Wellness committee, Mitchell Hamline School of Law, 2024 –
JumpStart, Mitchell Hamline School of Law, 2022 –
Mitchell Hamline Gateway LSAT Prep Scholarship Recipient Mentor , 2020 –
Feed My Starving Children – volunteer, 2024 –
Amicus briefs committee co-chair, Queen’s Bench Bar Association, 2015–16
MCLE program co-chair, The Lawyer’s Club of San Francisco-Inns of Court, 2015–16
Mentor, Queen’s Bench Bar Association Juvenile Hall Project, 2013–16
Legal content delivery writer and editor, Rust Consulting, 2012–14
Moot court practitioner coach, Marquette University Law
Moot court judge, Mitchell Hamline School of Law, University of Minnesota Law School, Hastings College of Law, Marquette University Law School, Golden Gate University School of Law
Bar admission
Wisconsin, 2010
Illinois, 2011
California, 2012
Massachusetts, 2016
Minnesota, 2018
Professional focus
Diversity, equity, inclusion, and wellness are pillars in professor Coon’s professional and personal lives. Professor Coon previously worked as a plaintiff-side employment and civil rights individual-plaintiff and class-action litigator in San Francisco. She represented individual employees as well as thousands of class members in employment discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, wage and hour, and other related claims in both state and federal courts nationwide, recovering millions of dollars in damages. During the summer of 2019, Professor Coon worked for the Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO), which expands opportunities for minority and low-income students to attend law school. The time Professor Coon dedicated to CLEO spurred some of her scholarship, including the presentation: The Two Cs: Using Collaboration and Community to Increase Access to Legal Education for Diverse Students, which addresses how schools can collaborate with outside organizations to increase diverse students’ access to legal education, and what activities and resources can be implemented by schools to support these students in and to promote their success. Of additional great importance to Professor Coon is her membership on the Mitchell Hamline Wellness Committee.
In her role as a legal instructor in academic support, Professor Coon has taken her personal diversity and wellness initiatives from the real world to the classroom. She strives for advancement for the future generations in the real world. She focuses on personally connecting with students to create a safe, nurturing space for their education so that they may flourish and positively shape the legal landscape while remaining true to themselves.
Personal interests
Outside of the law school, you can find Professor Coon doing yoga, writing poetry, playing volleyball, gardening, and doing all things associated with lake life.
