Following law school graduation, Laughrey was an assistant state attorney general of Missouri until 1979, when she served as a municipal judge for
Columbia, Missouri until 1983. She became an associate professor of University of Missouri (Columbia) Law School in 1983, and was made a full professor there in 1987. At the same time, she was deputy state attorney general of Missouri from 1992 to 1993. In 2017, she ruled against the right of citizens to film public officials and officers in public. ==References==