Medical-marijuana advocates honored at Missouri Lawyers Awards

Staff Report//February 1, 2019

: Dan Viets talks to the crowd after getting one of the Lawyer of the Year Awards.
: Fred O’Neil and Heidi Vollet
: Gary Burger and John Schirger have a conversation after checking in.
: The Missouri Lawyers Awards class of 2019
: Howard Paperner and Michael Wolff share a moment together before the awards.
: Jane Barnes and Ron Chapel talk together before lunch.
: Jeffery Reed and Sam Baste enjoy a few minutes together before the awards.
: Joe Ott, Timothy Gearin and Joseph Porter talk before the awards.
: Joan Hill takes a photo of her grandson Michael Hill before the start of the awards.
: Terry Crouppen, Ed Herman, Tricia Campbell and Nelli Langdon spent a little time together before the start on the awards reception.

Missouri Lawyers Media honored attorneys Joseph D. “Chip” Sheppard III, Dan Viets and Michael B. Hill — and their advocacy for the ballot initiative that legalized medical marijuana and now promises to transform the state’s legal landscape — at the 2019 Missouri Lawyers Awards on Jan. 25.

Sheppard, Viets and Hill accepted their 2019 Lawyers of the Year awards at a luncheon ceremony at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis. They were among 23 attorneys from around the state who were celebrated for their legal accomplishments in 2018.

“The legalization of medical marijuana will affect practice areas far and wide, from employment law to gun rights to criminal defense,” Missouri Lawyers Media Publisher Liz Irwin said in her introduction of the Lawyers of the Year.

“It will bring a host of new regulations that those who want to get into this new business will have to navigate. Their work also was notable for the litigation that didn’t happen,” Irwin added, noting that theirs was the only one of three competing measures to win voter approval in the Nov. 6 election.

“If all three had passed, the state would be mired in litigation now to figure out which version was the true will of the people,” she said. “Our Lawyers of the Year backed an idea whose time clearly has come.”

Also recognized at the event were 54 attorneys who handled Missouri Lawyers Media’s Top Verdicts & Settlements in 2018.

The honorees are:

Lawyers of the Year

Joseph D. (Chip) Sheppard III, of Carnahan, Evans, Cantwell & Brown, Dan Viets, of Dan Viets Attorney, and Michael B. Hill, of Canna Jurist

Influential Lawyers

Jay Barnes, former state representative and now of Simmons Hanly Conroy, R. Dan Boulware of Polsinelli, Edward L. Dowd Jr. of Dowd Bennett, Nathan F. Garrett of Graves Garrett and Gregory M. Kratofil Jr. of Polsinelli

Legal Champions

Lee Camp, of ArchCity Defenders, Charlie J. Harris Jr. of Seyferth Blumenthal & Harris, Shannon Norman of Shannon Norman Law and Ashley Ricket of the Ricket Law Firm

Influential Appellate Advocates

Josef S. Glynias of Husch Blackwell, Adina Johnson of Roberts Perryman, Michael Manners of Langdon & Emison, and David L. McCain Jr. of the Missouri Attorney General’s Office

Law Firm Leaders

Mark Cantor of Cantor Injury Law, Jeffrey A. Cohen of Capes Sokol, Andy Crouppen of Brown & Crouppen, Timothy J. Gearin of Armstrong Teasdale, Brian D. Malkmus of the Malkmus Law Firm, Adam P. Seitz of Erise IP and Sharon Stolte of Sandberg Phoenix & von Gontard

Lawyers with the largest reported plaintiffs’ verdicts of the year:

Eric Holland, Patrick Dowd and Seth Crompton of the Holland Law Firm; Thomas Neill of Gray, Ritter & Graham; Gary Burger of Burger Law; Michael Flannery of Cuneo, Gilbert & LaDuca; Michael Ketchmark, Ben Fadler and Scott McCreight of Ketchmark & McCreight; Norman Siegel, Ethan Lange, Lindsay Perkins and David Hickey of Stueve Siegel Hanson; and John Schirger, Matthew Lytle and Joseph Feierabend of Miller Schirger in Kansas City.

Lawyers with the largest reported plaintiffs’ judgments of the year:

Craig Heidemann, Nathan Duncan and Nick Allen of Douglas, Haun & Heidemann; Jeremy Gogel of The Gogel Law Firm; and Michael Berry of Berry Wilson

Lawyers with the largest reported defense verdicts of the year:

Michael Abrams and Kate O’Hara Gasper of Lathrop Gage; Greg Minana and Ashley Rothe of Husch Blackwell; James A. Cochrane III and James Laramore of Bradshaw, Steele, Cochrane & Berens; John Schultz and James Meyers of Franke, Schultz & Mullen; Scott Adam, Sean McGrevey and Tyler Lawrence of Adam & McGrevey; Bruce Keplinger and Emily Tung of Norris & Keplinger; Mark Lynch and Jaime Whitt of Simpson, Logback, Lynch, Norris; and Tad Eckenrode and Lisa Howe of Eckenrode-Maupin

Lawyers with the largest reported settlements of the year:

Patrick Stueve of Stueve Siegel Hanson; Don Downing of Gray, Ritter & Graham; Tim Dollar of Dollar Burns & Becker; Heidi Doerhoff Vollet of Cook, Vetter, Doerhoff & Landwehr; Fred O’Neill; John Greider and Deborah S. Greider; John Ammann, Barbara Gilchrist and Amy Sanders of Saint Louis University School of Law’s civil litigation clinic; John Hoffman and Doug Sprong of Korein Tillery; Lee Curtis and Carl Lumley of Curtis, Heinz, Garrett & O’Keefe; Howard Paperner; and John Mulligan Jr.