Madeleine McDonough named 2024 Woman of the Year

Madeleine McDonough, the chair of one of Missouri’s most successful firms, is Missouri Lawyers Media’s Woman of the Year.

McDonough, leading Shook, Hardy & Bacon since 2017, has a track record few could compete with. In 2022, Shook had the highest profit per attorney of any large Missouri firm, according to Missouri Lawyers Media’s MOney publication, and the second-highest profit per equity partner. The year before, the firm’s profit growth was the highest among the state’s top firms, at 24.5 percent, following a 19.6 percent increase in 2020.

Those results are naturally impressive. But add context — Shook is a litigation-heavy firm that achieved much of this while many trials were halted due to the coronavirus pandemic — and McDonough’s success is outstanding.

And it’s not just profits that are growing under McDonough’s leadership. So is Shook’s physical footprint, as the firm has added new offices in St. Louis, New York, Hartford, Boston, Atlanta and Los Angeles in recent years.

McDonough has been an attorney at Shook since earning her law degree from the University of Kansas in 1990. She represents large companies in industries such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and food and beverage and is co-chair of Shook’s environmental, social and governance practice.

Missouri Lawyers Media named McDonough a Lawyer of the Year in 2004 for her pioneering work in e-discovery and honored her again in 2013, when she was named a Mentor of the Year.

Since 1999, the Women’s Justice Awards have honored hundreds of female lawyers, law students, rising stars, public officials and others who have displayed professional excellence in Missouri’s courtrooms and boardrooms.

McDonough and 53 other honorees will be celebrated at Missouri Lawyers Media’s Women’s Justice Awards on May 16 at the Ameristar Casino Resort Spa in St. Charles. The honorees will be profiled in the May edition of our monthly publication.

The 2024 honorees are:

Woman of the Year

Madeleine McDonough – Shook, Hardy & Bacon

Corporate

Beverly Garner – Bunge

Hannah Nelson – BJC Health System

Maggie Foltz – KC Current

Stephanie Becker – Associated Wholesale Grocers

Abby Norcross Craigmyle – CoxHealth

General Practitioner

Stephanie Lovett-Bowman – Spencer Fane

Simone Haberstock – Law Offices of Simone A. Haberstock

Innovations & Technology

Billee McAuliffe – Lewis Rice

Leaders of Tomorrow

Amearah Elsamadicy – Washington University

Lily IIyer – Saint Louis University

Sydney Rempe – Saint Louis University

Naomi Buie – University of Missouri – Kansas City

Paige Harris – University of Missouri

Litigation Practitioner

Venus Jackson – Law Office of Venus A. Jackson Esq

Alexandra Wells – Lashly & Baer

Emily Cantwell – Lathrop GPM

Gretchen Garrison – Gray Ritter Graham

Diane Robben – Sandberg Phoenix & von Gontard

Molly Hastings – Hastings Law Firm

Lisa Hansen – Lisa Hansen Attorney at Law

Kaitlin Gallen – Polsinelli

Lauren Dollar – Dollar, Burns, Becker & Hershewe

Kathryn O’Shea – Wallace Saunders

Heather Hardinger – The Meyers Law Firm

Lori Korth – Andereck Evans Law Firm

Taylon Sumners-Schwartz – Wampler & Passanise

Elizabeth Fax – Greene County Prosecutor’s office

Sarah Donelan – Donelan Law

Pro Bono/Social Justice

Beth Boggs – Boggs, Avellino, Lach & Boggs

Amanda Schneider – Legal Services of Eastern Missouri

Onalee Yousey – Armstrong Teasdale

Alicia Johnson – Legal Aid of Western Missouri

Lucy Terry – UMKC/ Law MO Self Help Clinic

Public Service

Joann Leykam – St. Charles County Government

Hon. Mondonna Ghasedi – St. Louis County Circuit Court

Carrie Costantin – U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Missouri

Ruth Petsch – Office of State Public Defender

Sherrill Rosen – Jackson County Circuit Court

Hon. Talley Smith – Monroe County Circuit Court

Rose Barber – Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District

Transactional Practitioner

Patricia Bland – Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal

Stacey Janssen – Janssen Estate Probate & Elder Law

Danielle Kincaid – Elder Law Group

Anne Salle Mason – Neale & Newman

Mentor

Christina Moore – Husch Blackwell

Rachael Houser – Missouri Attorney General’s Office

Susan Appleton – Washington University in St. Louis

Athena Dickson – Siro Smith Dickson

Karen Johnson – Evans & Dixon

Service in the Law

Rev. Bethany Johnson-Javois – Deaconess Foundation

Latricia Scott Adams – Legal Aid of Western Missouri

Cary Powers – UMKC School of Law

Elizabeth Unruh – Greene County Circuit Court