Missouri Lawyers Media Missouri legal news and public notices
Tueth Keeney, St. Louis
At the tail end of 2022, Jim Layton won two Missouri Supreme Court cases in one day.
One opinion upheld sovereign immunity for a city council decision and the other favored the board of a state insurance fund.
Layton served for more than 22 years in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office under Attorneys General Jay Nixon (a POWER honoree) and Chris Koster. He argued before the Missouri Supreme Court more than 90 times, defending the construction of tax laws and the constitutionality of Missouri statutes.
In 2017, he joined Tueth Keeney and that same year, he made his fourth U.S. Supreme Court argument defending the Missouri Department of Natural Resources over a church daycare’s use of a state-funded program.
Layton handled a set of cases in which the Supreme Court determined some special laws can survive if there is a reason for them, though the Missouri Constitution prohibits special laws.
Layton earned his law degree from Brigham Young University in 1982.
