Missouri’s Top 20 Law Firms: Dowd Bennett

Home to Most Former Officials

Many former state and federal officials settle down with a law firm at the end of their public careers. But Dowd Bennett in St. Louis boasts a particularly concentrated — and bipartisan collection.

Name partner Ed Dowd served from 1993 to 1999 as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri under President Bill Clinton He went on to start his firm with Jim Bennett, a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, in 2006.

Jack Danforth served as Missouri’s attorney general from 1968 to 1976, the first Republican elected to a statewide office in Missouri in two decades. He then was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1995.

Partner Jim Martin is also a former U.S. Attorney, having been appointed to the vacant Eastern District of Missouri in 2004. Former assistant U.S. attorneys include Gabriel Gore and Michelle Nasser. Danforth, Dowd, Martin and Gore all worked on the 1999 investigation of the fatal 1993 raid of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.

Jay Nixon, who once challenged Danforth as attorney general, was elected as Missouri’s top legal official in 1992. He served four terms, then was the 55^th governor of Missouri from 2009 to 2017.