ICON Honors 2024: E. Sid Douglas III

Shareholder, Gilmore Bell, Kansas City

For Sid Douglas, the practice of law could be considered a family business that dates back four generations. Even uncles, cousins and his brother followed in their ancestors’ footsteps making the Douglas clan’s roots in the law both deep and broad.

“I grew up when holidays were a time when all the lawyers in the family gathered to share war stories,” he says. “Many of them were smalltown lawyers, taking whatever cases came in the door.”

Douglas took a different route. He left for Kansas City to seek opportunities in business law. He has worked in public finance since arriving at Gilmore Bell in 1989 where he helps cities, counties, school districts and other government entities finance community improvements like new town halls and community centers or new clean water systems.

“We generally work with the pillars of the communities who commit their time and effort to make their cities better,” he says. “I play a very small part in helping to make that happen.”

He is recognized as one of Missouri’s leading experts on financing highway projects, counseling the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission on more than $7 billion in financing. He also served as bond counsel for the issuance of $31,570,000 in bonds to finance the acquisition of the Lake of the Ozarks Community Bridge.

Despite his high-profile projects, success stories, and important works, for Douglas, the best part of his career was showing his kids what he did for a living when they were young.

“I could point to the sports complex in Kansas City where the Chiefs and Royals play and tell them my firm helped secure financing to help renovate those stadiums,” he says. “I could show them where I’ve worked on city halls and fire stations and water towers and community centers, and I helped put them in place for that community.”

For Douglas, it’s an opportunity to be a part of history.

“After 35-plus years of practice, when it’s all said and done, I can look around and point to a facility or a historic stadium and say, ‘Here’s something I played a part in bringing to reality.’”