Quinton Lucas

With the Kansas City, Mo., City Council election closing in, a Kansas University law professor appears likely to win a seat. Quinton Lucas, KU associate professor of law, is running to be the third district at-large representative on the council.

Lucas is a fourth-generation Kansas Citian who grew up poor in the city’s urban core, according to his campaign website. He earned academic scholarships to Kansas City’s prestigious Barstow School, then to college at Washington University and law school at Cornell University. After graduating from Cornell, he worked as a law clerk to U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Duane Benton and practiced commercial litigation with the firm Rouse Hendricks German May in Kansas City. He joined KU’s law faculty in 2012, initially as a visiting assistant professor, the school’s first in more than 30 years.

Lucas handily won the April primary with 48 percent of the vote, followed by Stephan Gordon with 14 percent, according to The Kansas City Star. He appeared on the June 4 cover of The Pitch, which called him “the most promising East Side candidate for City Council in two decades.”

KU policy says employees are free to pursue public office as long as it does not infringe on their job duties. But Kansas City Council is a time-consuming gig. I played message tag with Lucas this week hoping to ask about that, although according to the Pitch, if Lucas — who lives in an apartment in Kansas City’s Jazz District — wins he would have to surrender his tenure track at KU and reduce his hours.

Either way, the race will be decided soon. Election Day in Kansas City is June 23.