Fresh out of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School, Zel Fischer, then 25, got a job in August 1988 as a clerk for Missouri Supreme Court Judge Andrew Jackson Higgins.
"That's really where I got my desire to be a judge on the Supreme Court, and I consider him to be one of my mentors," Fischer - now in his third year on the high court - said Thursday afternoon. "He actually administered all of my oaths as a lawyer, as a trial judge and as a judge on the Supreme Court."
Higgins, 90, died Wednesday in Kansas City, with family members at his side.