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Julia M. Vander Weele, Spencer Fane

Staff Report//August 15, 2025//

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Julia M. Vander Weele, Spencer Fane

Staff Report//August 15, 2025//

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Office Managing Partner, Kansas City

Until 2021, the office managing partner for Spencer Fane’s largest office was also the head of the entire firm. Julia Vander Weele’s ascension to the Kansas City managing partner role not only freed up Chair Pat Whalen to concentrate on the firm as a whole but also acknowledged Vander Weele’s formidable leadership accomplishments.

Vander Weele’s practice focuses on employer health and welfare plans and retirement plans. She is a longtime member of the firm’s executive committee and at times has been the only woman in the group. She is also a past chair of the Spencer Fane Women ADVOCATE group.

She is a board member of the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City and belongs to the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and the Northland Regional Chamber of Commerce.

She earned her law degree from the University of Iowa in 1994.

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