COLUMBIA — Attorney Mary Beck will be honored this coming week in the nation's Capitol with an Angels in Adoption award.
The award recognizes individuals and groups who have made extraordinary contributions on behalf of children in need. Recipients must be nominated by members of Congress.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that Beck left a 13-year career in nursing to attend law school. Since finishing in 1988, she has placed hundreds of children in permanent homes.
Beck, who is an MU School of Law professor, credits her interest in adoption law partly to her previous work as a nurse, where she often saw abused children. She said that finding a way to bring stability to the lives of these often difficult to adopt children became a priority.
She also has worked with law students to improve adoption laws in numerous states since joining the MU School of Law faculty in 1993.