University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law

The urban public law school with a small liberal arts feel

The Inns of UMKC Hon. Francis Marion Black (1836-1902)   Judge Black was born on July 26, 1836, in Champaign County Ohio. Like many young lawyers of his day he did not go to law school but clerked with an established lawyer until he passed the bar. When he was 28 he moved to Kansas City and began a small practice. Said to have had an almost matchless devotion to his business, he soon became prominent among his brother lawyers. He was a delegate to the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1875 in Jefferson City to write a new state constitution. His main contributions were in the areas of property law and fiscal responsibility. In 1880, he was elected circuit judge of the 24th Judicial Circuit. Five years later he became a member of the Missouri Supreme Court where he penned over 600 opinions-literally, with a quill pen. His opinions on equitable jurisprudence were often cited outside of Missouri. In 1893 he was unanimously renominated to the Supreme Bench by his party only to lose at the polls, as did many Democratic candidates that year. Upon his return to private practice he began meeting with the young lawyers Elmer Powell, William Borland and Edward Ellison to study law. Together they formalized their study group and in 1895 officially founded the Kansas City School of Law (now the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law). Judge Black was the first president of the school and lectured on equitable jurisprudence and personal property until his death in 1902. E.D. Ellison wrote in the 1909 Pandex," [Judge Black] fairly hammered the law into his students, and never let up until they thoroughly understood the subject under discussion."