Two law alumni will be honored at a university awards ceremony this spring. Please join us to help congratulate them at a reception from 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 26 in the Student Lounge at the law school. Please RSVP to Cary Powers at powerscl@umkc.edu or (816) 235-5361.
Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, ’83, will receive the Law Alumni Achievement Award. Appointed by President George W. Bush as Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Guam, Tydingco-Gatewood is the first female judge of Chamorro descent (Guam’s indigenous inhabitants). She began her law career at the 16th Judicial Court as a clerk for the Honorable Forest Hanna and then served as a prosecutor for Jackson County, Missouri. She returned to Guam and worked for the Guam Attorney General’s office. In 1994, she was appointed to the Guam Superior Court. In 2006, she was nominated and confirmed by the United States Senate to her position of Chief Judge.
Lajuana Counts, ’88, will receive the Bill French Alumni Service Award for her outstanding service to the Law School and the University while balancing her role as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. Counts has served as president of the UMKC School of Law Alumni Association and serves on the board of the Law Foundation. She was president of the UMKC Women’s Council; chair of the Women’s Council’s Graduate Assistance Fund Selection Committee; a vice president of the UMKC Alumni Association Governing Board and served on the Law School’s Minority Advisory Board.
Lajuana Counts has been a pleasure to watch since her graduation from law school. She immediately dove into service to the community, the Bar associations of Kansas City and the Law School. She is known to be a thoughtful, committed, capable attorney and individual. She has been a valuable asset to her community and to all who have had the opportunity to know and work with her. I congratulate and salute her and thank her for her stellar service which has made Kansas City a better place for all of us to live.
Lajuana has been a reliable and outstanding member of our Law Foundation Board of Trustees where she currently serves as Secretary. Congratulations Lajuana!
Congratulations Lajuana,
As Chief of the Appellate Unit, United States Attorney’s Office, Assistant United States Attorney Lajuana Counts works tirelessly to ensure that our appellate practice before the Eighth Circuit is topflight. Thank you for your friendship, Lajuana. Christina Y. Tabor
Congrats Frances ! Now you can finally goto PennyStocksWizard.net and invest some money haha