Attorneys honored at annual Missouri Lawyers Awards

Missouri Lawyers Media honored a number of attorneys at its recent annual Missouri Lawyers Awards — including Richard Scherrer as Lawyer of the year.

About 300 people attended the Jan. 26 luncheon in St. Louis to honor the attorneys for exceptional legal work across the state. With top billing, Scherrer was honored for his ongoing work with the Missouri Coalition for the Right to Counsel, a group he co-founded that partners private lawyers with the Missouri Public Defender’s office. The effort is designed to help reduce the office’s caseload burden while assisting early-career attorneys with more trial experience. To date, the organization has trained 240 lawyers.

Scherrer, after a 43-year career with Armstrong Teasdale, now oversees the new program in a full-time, unpaid position with the state public defender.

Missouri Lawyers Media publisher Liz Irwin introduced Scherrer as “one of a kind.”

In addition to Lawyer of the Year, the program honored attorneys in categories for appellate work, law firm leaders, news influencers and legal champions, as well as the top verdicts and settlements of 2017. Honorees include:

Influential Lawyers

• Steve Cousins of Armstrong Teasdale
• Don Downing of Gray, Ritter & Graham and Patrick Stueve of Stueve Siegel Hanson
• Lisa Krigsten of Dentons
• Michelle Marriott of Erise IP
• Michael Rader of Bartimus Frickleton Robertson Rader
• Ellen Suni, former Dean of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law

Legal Champions

• Michael Blumenthal and Paul Seyferth of Seyferth Blumenthal & Harris
• Gerard Carmody and Ryann Carmody of Carmody MacDonald
• Michael Foster and Phillip Zeeck of Polsinelli
• Thomas Pickert of Fowler Pickert Eisenmenger
• Cheryl Pilate of Morgan Pilate
• Tim Sansone of Sandberg Phoenix & von Gontard

Influential Appellate Advocates

• Amy Blaisdell of Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale
• Amy Collignon Gunn, Anne-Marie Brockland and Elizabeth Washam of The Simon Law Firm
• Jonathan Whitehead of the Law Office of Jonathan R. Whitehead
• Erin Williams of Ogletree Deakins

Law Firm Leaders

• Michael Angelides, managing shareholder of Simmons Hanly Conroy
• Jean Paul Bradshaw of Lathrop Gage, leader of the firm’s newly formed government relations and lobbying subsidiary
• Ed Herman, managing partner of Brown & Crouppen
• Maurice Watson, chairman of Husch Blackwell
• W. Russell Welsh, chairman and chief executive officer of Polsinelli mo