A cursory look at the resume for Jefferson County’s new municipal judge, Jalesia F.M. Kuenzel, indicates she checks the usual and desirable boxes for qualifications for a judge.
She graduated with cum laude honors from the Southern Illinois University School of Law, worked for a couple of prestigious firms in St. Louis, then started a private practice. She holds law licenses in both Missouri and Illinois and has experience in a number of areas, including civil, corporate, government and municipal cases.
If you look a little further, however, you’ll find that Kuenzel boasts something you don’t find on most attorney’s resumes.
She has a movie credit to her name and served as an executive producer on that same motion picture.
Kuenzel, 50, of De Soto was scheduled to be sworn in as the county’s fifth municipal judge on Tuesday, Nov. 15, after Leader deadline, succeeding Julianne “Juli” Platz Hand, who ran unopposed in the Nov. 8 election for the Jefferson County Div. 11 associate circuit judgeship.
Jefferson County Executive Dennis Gannon appointed Kuenzel to the municipal judgeship, and the Jefferson County Council voted 6-0 in a Nov. 7 closed session to approve the appointment. Councilman Brian Haskins (District 1, High Ridge) was absent.
The municipal judge position is a part-time job, and Kuenzel will be paid $60,000 a year to hear traffic offenses, code violations and some minor criminal matters from all around the county, easing the caseload on the rest of the judges in the county’s 23rd Circuit Court.
Gannon said five people applied for the municipal judge opening, but Kuenzel was deemed the best.
“She stood out because she had so many great credentials,” Gannon said. “She was over and above the rest in what we were looking for in a municipal judge. A municipal judge is different from the associate and circuit judges. In a municipal judge, you’re looking for someone who can resolve problems. I think she’ll be able to do that.”
Kuenzel said the notion of putting her name in for consideration was a recent one.
“It wasn’t something I’ve thought about for a long time,” she said. “A couple of months ago, I was approached by some colleagues and friends who thought I might be a good fit. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that I might be a good fit, and that I’d apply for it, never with the thought that I’d get it.”
On the silver screen
“Not everybody can say they’ve been an executive producer for a Hollywood movie,” Kuenzel said of “Roe v. Wade,” a feature film released in 2019. “I was hired as the lead counsel for a celebrity case, Nick Loeb v. Sofia Vergara, that dealt with embryo custody. In that case, Loeb was seeking custody of frozen pre-embryos created when the couple dated.”
Kuenzel’s involvement came about because she’s active in the pro-life movement as a member of the Eastern Region board of Missouri Right to Life and is a founder of Embryo Defense, a nonprofit organization.
An appellate judge ultimately ruled in 2021 that Loeb can’t use the frozen embryos to create a child “without the explicit written permission of the other person.”
“It was a case that generated a lot of publicity,” Kuenzel said, “and when Loeb decided to make a movie (he was a writer and producer on the film that starred Jon Voight and Stacey Dash as well as Loeb), he asked me if I would like to be involved. It was really by happenstance that I was enlisted.
“I even acted in the movie. I have one line. I played a reporter. If you blink, you’ll miss it,” she said.
Kuenzel said her circle of associates thought the movie was well-done.
“Regardless of your opinions about abortion – and everybody has an opinion about it – my friends, who also have differing viewpoints, all said, ‘This is great.’”
A different background
Although she set down roots in De Soto about five years ago, Kuenzel has seen a good deal of the world.
“My father was in the military,” she said. “He served 25 years in the Air Force. I was born in Japan on an Air Force base. My mother was from Lima, Peru, and she immersed me in that culture. She always spoke Spanish to me.
“We moved around, so I had to meet new people all the time. When my dad retired from the service, we were living in Germany and then moved to Florida, so that’s where I spent my middle school, high school and college years.
“After I earned my bachelor’s degree, I enlisted in the Army for five years, then started applying to different law schools. That’s where I learned about SIU, and that you could qualify for in-state tuition after 90 days. I loved the St. Louis area and was lucky to get a job here.”
Kuenzel’s experiences in the two large St. Louis firms was invaluable, she said.
“I am appreciative that I got to have that opportunity, because those experiences gave me the tools to start my own firm,” she said. “It was great to see how things are done, and when I was ready to start my own firm, I could apply that.
“I always wanted to start my own business. Always. But when I got out of the Army, I wasn’t ready to start my own firm. By 2009, I was ready and I never looked back. But being a solo attorney is very hard. I never have anyone who’s got your back, nobody to take up for you. When you’re in a big firm, you realize there are all kinds of people in the legal profession. Some are very much people-oriented, and others may not be, but they can find a place in a large firm. That’s not the case in a solo practice. You have to be a lot of things to a lot of people.
“The day after I had my third child, I was in the hospital taking a call from a client. I’m not complaining about that; it’s just what you do when you have your own business. My client didn’t know where I was. But when he found out, he sent a bouquet of flowers to me.”
Kuenzel and her husband, Anthony, are partners in their Sunset Hills practice.
Between juggling the business and their family of five children, as well as community involvement, Kuenzel said she understands that even though being the county’s municipal judge is a part-time gig, it will be demanding.
“But I’ll work it out,” she said. “My husband and I have talked about this. I don’t make any decision without him. I think it’s going to be great. I’m very excited to get started.”