Jennifer K. Bukowsky

Jennifer Bukowsky is Executive Director of Show-Me Defenders, a not-for-profit handling murder cases on behalf of the Missouri State Public Defender System, pro bono. Throughout her career, Jennifer has handled over 1,400 criminal cases on behalf of clients charged with offenses ranging from trespass to first-degree murder.

Jennifer clerked for Judge Mary R. Russell on the Missouri Supreme Court after law school. She then worked as an Assistant Public Defender for several years before entering private practice at her own law firm, where she remained until she co-founded Show-Me Defenders in 2021.

Jennifer has received numerous awards including the David J. Dixon Appellate Advocacy Award from the Missouri Bar Foundation, the President’s Service Award from the Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, the Director’s Award from the Missouri State Public Defenders System, the Distinguished Recent Alumni Award from the University of Missouri School of Law, the Rising Star Award at the Missouri Lawyers Weekly’s Women’s Justice Awards, the Pro Bono Publico Award from the Missouri Bar YLS, and she was named as a “20 Under 40” by the Columbia Business Times.

Jennifer is President the Federalist Society’s Jefferson City Lawyers Chapter. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Show-Me Institute and on the Missouri Supreme Court’s Task Force on Criminal Justice. 

Jennifer previously served as an adjunct law professor for the University of Missouri where she taught the Innocence Clinic. She was President of the Boone County Bar Association from 2014-2015. Jennifer was also appointed to serve on two different Missouri Bar Committees– one to complete a comprehensive revision of Missouri’s Criminal Code, and one to draft an expungement bill. Both the criminal code revision and the expungement bill were passed by the Missouri Legislature and went into effect in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Jennifer also has election law experience. As an active member of the Republican National Lawyers Association, Jennifer has been deployed as a volunteer attorney to assist during elections in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Missouri. She assisted with litigation on one of those deployments.

Jennifer received a J.D. with highest honors from the University of Missouri School of Law where she was Order of the Coif, published two articles as a member of the Missouri Law Review, received the Wallace Walter Prize for finishing #1 in her class after 1L year, won first place in Mock Trial and Top 10 Oralist in 1L Moot Court, and received eight awards for achieving the highest grades in various courses. Jennifer received a bachelor’s and a master’s in accountancy from the University of Missouri. She is also a CPA.

Jennifer lives in Columbia, Missouri with her husband and their two sons. She has been a regular weekly talk radio guest and frequent fill-in talk-radio host since 2012. Jennifer’s other hobbies include card games, reading, hosting big family dinner parties, and playing pickleball.