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 of their focus on critical reading, thinking, writing, and ultimate bar passage. 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. She is also an associate adjunct professor of legal research and writing at the University of Minnesota Law School.
“If you wish to be a lawyer, attach no consequence to the place you are in, or the person you are with; but get books, sit down anywhere, and go to reading for yourself. That will make a lawyer of you quicker than any other way.” —Abraham Lincoln
Anyone with passion for the law can be a successful lawyer. But, there are no shortcuts in learning the law: it is a grueling process that requires commitment and hard work, namely with respect to reading and writing. I weave these principles into my teaching, holding students to the highest pedagogical standards and knowing they can achieve great successes when they do the work. I take a personable approach to students to help them understand how to effectively communicate the law and its applications.
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
University of Minnesota: associate adjunct professor, 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
Curriculum committee, Mitchell Hamline School of Law, 2020-
Instructional mediator, Council on Legal Education Opportunity, 2019
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
Bar admission
California, 2012
Illinois, 2011
Massachusetts, 2016
Minnesota, 2017
Wisconsin, 2010
Professional focus
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are pillars in professor Coon’s personal and professional 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. In her role as a legal instructor, professor Coon has taken her personal diversity initiatives from the real world to the classroom in order to continue advancement by way of the future generations in the real world. She strives to focus on personally connecting with students to create a safe space for their education so that they may flourish and positively shape the legal landscape.
