Athena Dickson named vice-president of Missouri Bar

Athena Dickson has already led nearly every legal organization in Kansas City. So why not take on The Missouri Bar?

Dickson, a partner at Siro Smith Dickson in Kansas City, was elected as vice president of The Missouri Bar during the Board of Governors meeting on Sept. 13. The election, which was uncontested, puts her in line to become the organization’s president starting in 2025.

The vote expands an already historic level of female leadership of the bar: It’s president, past president, president-elect and vice president are all women. The election came just one day after Judge Kelly Broniec was named to the Missouri Supreme Court, which now has a female majority for the fist time in its history.

Dickson served as president of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association in 2020, leading the association through the first year of the pandemic.

“Athena is prepared for this opportunity,” said one of her nominators, Scott Bethune of Davis Bethune & Jones. “She is up for the mission.”

Dickson also has served as president of the Association for Women Lawyers of Greater Kansas City, the Young Lawyers Section of KCMBA and the Jackson County Law Library Board. She also is a coordinator for AWL’s Connections program, which pairs young female lawyers with mentors within the legal community.

“She’s nearly achieved the EGOT of bar association presidencies,” said co-nominator Amanda Pennington Ketchum of Dysart Taylor McMonigle Brumitt & Wilcox. (The acronym stands for the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony performing-arts awards.)

Bar leadership nominations are traditionally lighthearted and silly, and while Bethune and Ketchum opted against a song or an interpretive dance, they did enjoy Photoshopping Dickson’s face into a variety images, from a painting of the goddess Athena to Jennifer Lopez to the Kangaroo mascot of UMKC, from whose law school she earned her law degree in 2003.

Not content with Dickson’s list of accomplishments, several supporters added a few rather implausible ones.

“If it wasn’t for Athena,” former Bar President Dana Tippin Cutler said in a video tribute, “Patrick Mahomes never would have come to Kansas City.”

Dickson is set to take office following current president-elect Shelley Dryer’s 2024-25 term. The annual meeting marks the transition of bar president terms. This year, Megan Phillips succeeded Lauren Tucker McCubbin.