Litigation Practitioner: Jackie Chun

Owner/Principal, Law Offices of Jackie Chun

St. Louis 

When Jackie Chun was in law school at Washington University, it was suggested that she might do some volunteer work at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri. 

It turned out to be a good idea. 

“I ended up working there for 16 years,” Chun said. “I originally went to law school to become a tax attorney.” 

Taxes wouldn’t end up as Chun’s focus. Instead, future state supreme court chief justice Richard Teitelman would mentor her at Legal Services where she spent three years as a law student and another 13 as an attorney. 

Some of those she assisted still send her pictures of their kids. 

“The clients there were just so wonderful,” noted Chun, who is originally from Hawaii. “I feel like it was a privilege to be able to help them.” 

She also has clients who refer business to the family law practice she’d later go on to create. 

“One of my very first cases was helping a grandma with her grandchildren,” Chun remembered. “It was a really bad situation.” 

She told the impoverished woman that she’d take the case at cost. 

Chun, a graduate of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, has done many CLEs or lectures on everything from paternity to domestic violence. 

She said the field of family law is an ever-changing one. 

“When I started, the woman always got custody,” she noted. “Dads usually got every other weekend and one night during the week. That has completely flipped. Now men get joint custody and 50 percent of the time. That makes me happy because fathers have a lot to offer.” 

Chun said the makeup of her profession hasn’t altered as much as one might think. 

“When I was in law school, already half my class were women,” she recalled. “I think it depends on the field too. In family law, there are a lot of women.”

Not that the numbers couldn’t stand an increase. 

“I think we have a lot of women but we definitely need more women in the courts,” she said.