From the Sunshine State to the Sunflower State
Anne Marie Yatsula, L’25, likes to joke that she randomly looked at a map to decide where to go to law school. The truth is, the Florida-native fell in love with Lawrence when she visited.
“I got the sense that KU would be a place where I could be part of a vibrant, welcoming community,” she said. “That has been the case!”
After earning her undergraduate degree at Florida State University, Yatsula packed up for the Midwest, a move that would shape both her legal education and her future career.
From the start, she jumped into leadership, serving as 1L SBA Class President. But it was her work with the Kansas Supreme Court’s Rural Justice Initiative Committee that left the deepest mark. Over two years, she conducted focus groups, met with legal practitioners and even testified before the Kansas Legislature in support of a rural attorney student loan forgiveness bill.
“Assisting the Kansas Supreme Court, though not a typical extracurricular, was the highlight of my law school career,” she said. “I’m lucky to be able to continue this work through my post-grad job.”
That job? Staff Attorney at the League of Kansas Municipalities, where she previously worked during her field placement. It’s a role that perfectly blends her interests in law and local government, a passion that started during an undergraduate internship with the Tallahassee Downtown Improvement Authority.
“I’ve always known that I wanted to work in government, but I caught the local government bug during college,” Yatsula said. “I worked with some dedicated, passionate and interesting people, and that experience carried me into Career Services at KU Law, where from day one, I said that I wanted to work in municipal law.”
Since beginning law school, she’s worked for the Cities of Olathe, Salina and Kansas City, Missouri, and she’s returning to the League to continue that work.
“I have a special interest in helping extremely small cities resolve legal issues, and at the League, I take calls every day from cities with populations of less than 200,” she said. “It is so rewarding to help people who cannot afford to keep a full-time city attorney to run their government and make their communities better.”
Her love of local governance even extended to the classroom. One of her favorite KU Law experiences was taking Local Government Law with Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas just as the city was navigating the fallout of a failed stadium referendum. She even got to work for him the following semester!
But not all her memories are academic. One of her fondest moments came during the fall of her first year, when ESPN’s College Gameday came to town during KU’s undefeated football streak in 2022.
“I went out to the Hill with some of my classmates at two in the morning and stayed through kickoff that afternoon,” she said. “It was a magical, silly and exciting experience, and I won’t forget it.”
Reflecting on her time in Green Hall, Yatsula credits KU Law not just for preparing her professionally, but also personally.
“Though my classes prepared me for the workforce, the thing I did not expect was to learn about myself,” she said.
That self-discovery came, in part, through KU Law’s in-house moot court competition. She went into the class with the belief that she was not particularly good at answering questions on the fly. But as the competition unfolded, she realized she was more capable than she had imagined — a revelation that continues to shape how she approaches challenges.
“Having the confidence to know that I can tackle whatever task is put in front of me is the most invaluable thing that KU Law has given me,” she said.
-By Casey Bacot