Graduation 2026: Kayla Brown and Parker Stout, in love and law

Kayla Brown and Parker Stout share everything: a home state, a WVU Law education, and a future in rural Webster County, where they’ll provide legal services to an underserved community.

Kayla Brown and Parker Stout began their interview with a classic couples’ moment: they both answered at the same time, then paused, turned to each other, and said, “You go first.”

There’s a lot of symmetry in their lives. They’re both from West Virginia – Brown from Harpers Ferry, Stout from Webster Springs. They both attended West Virginia University for undergrad, majoring in multidisciplinary studies and finance respectively.

Now they’re both graduating from the West Virginia University College of Law.

“We met in undergrad, when we were both residential assistants,” Brown said. “He was in Dadisman and I was in Stalnaker. Those two dorms are right next to each other, so we were in the same pool of RAs.”

When they started dating (first romantic getaway: Olive Garden), they didn’t plan to attend law school together. Brown got the idea from her roommate, a 1L at the College of Law, who told her it was a good way to pursue her interest in victim advocacy.

For Stout, the idea had its roots in the same place he grew his. “When it comes to lawyers in Webster County, it’s like you see in a movie, where you’ve got that 1 guy you always go to. That’s what I wanted to be."

Attending law school with a significant other came with advantages, like being able to study together and bounce legal concepts off each other. It also came with unanticipated drawbacks.

“I think the weirdest part was our 1L spring semester, because we had pretty much every single class together,” Brown said. “You can’t ask someone how their day was when you’ve been with them the entire time.”

It got weirder when they were put head-to-head against each other in a mock legal argument.

“I was the petitioner, and she was responding,” Stout said. “The professor didn’t even know we were together. We told her after it was over – she thought it was hilarious.”

They shared everything, including a trial competition in Washington, D.C., participation in extracurriculars like the Public Interest Advocates and Lugar Trial Association, and favorite professors. Both single out Woodrow A. Potesta Professor of Law Charles DiSalvo for his expertise in trial advocacy, as well as Teaching Associate Professor Jennifer Stephens for her work in family law.

“Professor Stephens has been a great mentor to us,” Brown said. “She’s our supervisor in the General Litigation Clinic. She helped us figure out how to not only just practice family law as attorneys, but also what our style’s going to be.”

Stout added, “She worked in family law, like divorce. We studied a lot of abuse and neglect too. That mix of theory and practice is what Professor Stephens definitely does best.”

Now Brown and Stout are putting theory into practice as they graduate from law school and head out into the world, hand-in-hand. Their destination: Webster County, Stout’s home, where they’ll clerk for Judges Michael W. Asbury and Jasmine R. H. Morton.

After that? There’s a wedding scheduled for September, and plans to eventually open a practice together in Webster County. When they start talking about being part of the community, where access to legal services is hard to come by, their excitement is contagious.

Brown: “That’s something I’m really excited about, once we open up our own practice – seeing how we can serve the community, which is primarily older people. Going somewhere where everyone knows each other has always been something I’ve wanted to do.”

Stout: “Webster County is very rural. There’s maybe 7,000 people. You get to know everybody. If you give me my high school yearbook, I can probably name everyone’s parents and some of their grandparents.”

It may sound like the two of them see eye-to-eye on everything. There’s just one area where they disagree.

“We’ll probably have three kids,” Stout said.

After a moment’s pause, Brown added, “He had to talk me down. I’ve always wanted four or five.”

MEDIA CONTACT:

Andrew Marvin
Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing
WVU College of Law
andrew.marvin@mail.wvu.edu