Mulligan taught business law and ethics at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, as well as contracts, civil procedure and other law courses at Michigan State University. He then moved back home to Kansas for a position at the University of Kansas School of Law. He spent 13 years at KU in teaching and administrative roles and also dove deep into academic pursuits, which involved a heavy amount of writing, including five books focused on civil procedure and related areas.

Mulligan’s time at KU culminated in his roles as interim vice provost for faculty affairs and the Earl B. Shurtz research professor of law. He oversaw KU Law’s Medical-Legal Partnership, which aids low-income clients and provides law students with field placement experiences. Mulligan also ran the school’s bar passage initiative, which led KU to the 11th-best passage rate in the country in 2022. He hopes to increase the bar passage rate at UMKC.

Since Mulligan stepped into the role of dean in July 2023, he has set out a clear vision for how the law school should step into its next era. “We aim to be the premier best-value law school,” Mulligan said. To get there, he says, the law school must “focus starkly on being best value.” This means keeping tuition down and making sure a UMKC law degree provides a clear path to a successful career.

Mulligan’s road map includes three main areas: helping improve the law school’s bar passage rate, maintaining and improving high rates of employment for graduates and building an empowering environment within the school to create opportunities for all.

To help more graduates successfully pass the bar exam, Mulligan has announced that the cost of a commercial bar preparation program will be included in every student’s tuition, along with bar prep courses taught within the law school. In the past, students have had to pay thousands of additional dollars for these services, and the reality is that many couldn’t afford them, Mulligan says. He hopes that including the cost of these courses will vastly improve bar passage rates.

He also wants the law school to look at new avenues of legal training that “map the economy.” While last year’s class had a 96.6% employment rate, Mulligan wants to build on that by looking for ways to make students even more marketable. Students need to expand their technology skills, for example, and look at opportunities in rural areas and small towns that often face lawyer shortages.

While UMKC will continue its strong tradition in trial practice, Mulligan believes the school must emphasize other areas of law, too. The school needs to offer more training in the health-care field, for example, where 26.1% of the local economy is concentrated. It also should focus on the field of business law, highlighting the Law School’s new Center for Law, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which opened in January 2023.

“The majority of legal jobs are not in trial practice, and we’re excited for folks to know that we have great training in business and transactional law as well,” Mulligan says.

Finally, Mulligan says, he wants to build on the law school’s empowering environment.

“We need to ensure we have both a work environment and educational environment where everyone can thrive and feel welcome,” he says. “We have consistently majority female classes. Our school is becoming more diverse across a host of measures. As we’re changing, we want to make sure we’re an empowering, inclusive environment for everyone.”

Mulligan also wants law school alumni to know they have an important role to play in the school’s future success. This includes opportunities for mentoring, adjunct teaching, employment considerations for fellow law school graduates and providing the school with financial support.

“We have work to do,” he says. And he is confident that the same path he has taken — from working-class parents to a successful law career — can remain available to all graduates of the law school.