The POWER List: Gene P. Graham

White, Graham, Buckley & Carr, Independence

Gene Graham has a hefty record of significant settlements, including a $6 million settlement in 2012 in an age-discrimination suit by a group of 36 former faculty members at a Kansas City community college. And he was part of the group of attorneys who secured a $57 million class action settlement with Sprint Nextel on age-discrimination claims in 2007.

He’s also helped shape the law. In 2014, he helped win Templemire v. W&M Welding Inc., a Missouri Supreme Court ruling that employees who allege they were fired for filing a workers’ compensation claim need only show that the claim was a “contributing factor” in the dismissal.

It remains one of the most significant employment-law rulings in recent years, though lawmakers got rid of that standard when they revised the state’s discrimination laws in 2017.

In 2015, Graham helped win Cox v. Kansas City Chiefs Football Club Inc., in the Supreme Court. A former employee of the football team won a new trial because a judge improperly excluded evidence of similar experiences from other older employees who were terminated.

Graham earned his law degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1984.