The POWER List: Kate Nolen

Lathrop GPM

Kate Nolen is counsel and pro bono coordinator for Lathrop GPM’s Kansas City office. She previously served as pro bono coordinator for Lathrop & Gage for nearly six years.

Before that, Nolen was director of legal services for Jackson County CASA for almost eight years, where she represented juveniles as a guardian ad litem while supervising a staff of attorneys, advocated for juveniles through litigation and mediation, and taught juvenile law courses as part of the organization’s volunteer training program.

During that time, Missouri Lawyers Weekly identified her as an Up & Coming Lawyer in 2013. By 2016, she had doubled the legal staff to better support juveniles. In 2019, when she was pro bono coordinator at Lathrop & Gage, she was then named an Up & Coming Mentor.

In between those awards, she was recognized in 2014 as a Rising Star of Kansas City Business by KC Business magazine, which honors leaders under 40 in various sectors. And in 2016, she won a Women’s Justice Award from Missouri Lawyers Weekly.

Nolen had been clerking at Bley & Pfeiffer for two years before she graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law in 2006. That same year, she began working as a judicial law clerk for the 16th Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, where she clerked for two years.