Barbara Glesner Fines

Prof. Barbara Glesner Fines is the Rubey M. Hulen Professor of Law and Dean Emerita at the University of Missouri - Kansas City School of Law in Kansas City, where she has been a member of the faculty since 1986. She served as executive associate dean from 2008-16 and as dean from 2017-23. Prof. Glesner Fines is a renowned expert on professional ethics, legal education and the professional identity formation of law students. She teaches courses on professional responsibility, ethical issues in the representation of families, family law, family violence, poverty law, entrepreneurial lawyering, solo and small firm practice, legal aid externship and family court clerkship. Prof. Glesner Fines also is associate dean for Faculty Development and co-director of the university’s Family Law Program. She has authored numerous articles and books on these subjects and is a fellow in the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership. Prior to arriving at UMKC, Prof. Glesner Fines taught courses at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and the University of Cincinnati College of Law, and she has been a visiting professor at the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign College of Law, University of Iowa College of Law, University of Wisconsin - Madison School of Law and the Council for Legal Educational Opportunity. She has authored or co-authored several publications, including Ethical Issues in Family Representation and Professional Responsibility: A Collaborative Approach, and has published articles in several law reviews. Prof. Glesner Fines also directs the school’s Self-Help Legal Clinic, where students provide instruction, referrals, brief advice and limited-scope representation to self-represented litigants in a variety of subject areas to build self-help resources and community education skills in pro se classes. She received her undergraduate degree in 1980 from Grand Valley State University, her J.D. cum laude in 1983 from the University of Wisconsin - Madison School of Law, where she was assistant managing editor of the Wisconsin Law Review, and her LL.M. in 1986 from Yale University Law School, where she was senior editor of the Yale Journal of International Law.