Katherine (Katie) Wessling was elected to the St. Louis Board of Education in 2007. She is a ’93 graduate of Truman State University, B.A. cum laude, and a ’96 graduate of Washington University School of Law. While in law school she volunteered for Legal Advocates for Abused Women (LAAW) and worked for Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry and LSEM on cases involving battered women. Since graduation she has worked as Managing Attorney for LAAW, and has either personally handled or overseen over 2000 Order of Protection cases in the last 10 years. She is a guest speaker at the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Academy on domestic violence law. She speaks frequently on domestic violence and the Adult Abuse Law in many forums, including at Missouri Coalition Against Domestic Violence trainings, Continuing Legal Education seminars, St. Louis City CASA trainings, health care worker trainings, and classroom presentations. In 2005 was the keynote speaker at the Jefferson County Family Violence Council Conference. She wrote “The OP Booklet,” which is used in the Adult Abuse and clerk’s offices of several local courthouses to assist Petitioners filing for Orders of Protection.

She is currently serving as Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater St. Louis. In her life outside the law she has two young daughters demanding every other waking moment, and many of ones that should be spent sleeping as well. She is the PTO Secretary at Wilkinson Early Childhood Center and co-leader of the WECC Brownie Troop. In addition, she and her husband are volunteers with St. John’s Mercy Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Parent Support Group, where parents who have had babies in the NICU offer support to parents whose babies are currently there.