The POWER List: Lawrence G. Gillespie

Gillespie Hetlage & Coughlin, St. Louis

One of the most frequently cited cases in Missouri is J.C.W. ex rel. Webb v. Wyciskalla, in 2009 Missouri Supreme Court ruling clarified the difference between a court’s jurisdiction to hear a case and its authority to act due to a particular statutory requirement.

Less well known is that it was a family law case, one of many that Larry Gillespie has taken to Missouri’s appellate courts. The Webb case stemmed from Gillespie’s representation of a man who challenged a state law that required him to post a bond in the amount of the child support he allegedly owed before he could seek to modify a custody arrangement.

More recently, in 2018, the Supreme Court he won a ruling affirming a man’s custody of his stepdaughter after both of her biological parents were found to be unfit.

Gillespie earned his law degree in 1981 from Saint Louis University and served as a law clerk to Judge Robert Crist of the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District from 1981 to 1982.