In between his successful three years at Mizzou Law, where he served as the first Black editor-in-chief of any law journal (the Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Law), and his acceptance of a federal clerkship, Arsenio Mims was facing a difficult two months.
Despite his success as a student, he had just become a full-time single parent of his son and his younger brother, and he was unable to begin employment at his clerkship until Sept. 1. But he also needed to put food on the table.
“I went to [Mizzou Law financial aid adviser Jeff Turnbull’s] office, almost in tears, like, look, I have a job like, I have this clerkship, but they’re not paying for me to study for the bar,” Mims said. “They’re not paying my expenses during the summertime, and I have to eat right? And so I don’t know what he did, but he worked his magic to where I was able to take out a loan for that summer to pay my fees for that summer. So I didn’t have to stress about that, because you’re so focused on the bar exam.”Now a partner at Dowd Bennett in St. Louis, Mims has fond memories of his law school friends, particularly Jeremiah (Jer) Nixon, whose father, former Gov. Jay Nixon, helped him land a job at Dowd Bennett and who is his current law partner. He also remembers fondly his time as the first Black student to be named editor-in-chief of a law review at Mizzou, a position for which he was encouraged by classmates to apply.
“I don’t care about titles, I don’t care about anything like that. And so I did that, you know, I applied, went through the whole interview process, and after I got it, fellow student Mark Godfrey, he said, ‘Mims, I think, I think you may be the first Black EIC that Mizzou Law’s had’ … I never knew. That’s candidly how it happened.”
It all came about because during law school, Mims describes himself as having “lived in the library.”
“My thing was, either make it or die trying,” he said. “There was no plan B for me. I didn’t have the option to fail. When I came to the law school, the only thing I heard about was how Black [students] don’t make it past the first year. And I was like, that’s not going to be me.”
Those experiences, as well as working with beloved professors and Mizzou Law staff like Michelle Heck, Erika Fadel, Dean Bob Bailey, Professor Chuck Henson and Professor David Mitchell, all helped shaped Mims into someone with a passion for giving back to the school.
“I say it all the time: My undergrad years were the best four years of my life, my three years in Mizzou Law were the best three years of my life,” he said. “That place has a special place in my heart.”
For several years, Mims has served on the Law School Foundation board, where he personally funded scholarships for both the editor-in-chief and the managing editor of the Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review to match the stipends provided for students in similar positions at the other journals within the school.
Eventually, Mizzou Law ended that practice altogether, after which Dean Paul Litton approached Mims with another idea.
“Dean Litton reached out to me with an idea about putting money elsewhere and helping students who needed funds during the summer, leading up to the bar exam,” he said. “It hit home with me, because I was that student.”
Earlier this year, Mims funded the first-ever “bridge grant” for students studying for the bar exam. The grant is a no-strings-attached fund to cover living expenses, allowing graduated students with financial need to dedicate their summer to studying for the bar exam.
Earlier this semester, Mims got the news that the program was paying off.“I just got an email from one of the recipients,” he said. “She told me she passed the bar exam. That touched me in a way that I didn’t really know I could be touched, to know that I really helped this individual.”
Original source can be found here.