If you want Phyllis Norman-Komoroski to represent you, just mention cats. Norman, co-owner of the small Kansas City firm Norman & Graves, once got a call from a woman whose brand-new puppy had been killed by a neighbor’s dog. Norman ...

Tagged with: Litigation Practitioner Norman & Graves Phyllis Norman WJA 2018

Another attorney’s broken foot proved to be Judith Westmoreland’s foot in the door to Kansas City’s legal community when she arrived without a job in 2013. Westmoreland, a staff attorney at Jackson County CASA, is a native of Austin, Texas, ...

Tagged with: Jackson County CASA Judith Westmoreland Litigation Practitioner WJA 2018

Politics shaped her life’s path from the start. Ashley Vaughan worked for Jay Nixon in his first run for Missouri governor and later on campaigns for former state Reps. Kenny Bierman and Susan Carlson. But in 2009, when the legislature ...

Tagged with: Ashley Vaughan Brown & Crouppen Litigation Practitioner WJA 2018

Jerina D. Phillips wrote her first contract at age 16. The party with whom she intended to enter into a contract: her mother. The substance of her inaugural attempt at a binding agreement: a “diminished” curfew. “I was the only ...

Tagged with: Jerina D. Phillips Litigation Practitioner

Throughout Missouri and Illinois, residents who have faced environmental hazards are familiar with her name or reputation. Jo Anna Pollock was a critical component of the Simmons Hanly Conroy legal team that filed suit for more than 600 residents around ...

Tagged with: Jo Anna Pollock Litigation Practitioner Simmons Hanly Conroy WJA 2018

Mary Anne Mellow was a pre-med student at Duke University with two doctor parents and two sisters headed into medical fields when the law bug bit. Her father was facing a medical-malpractice claim, and she saw the legal field as ...

Tagged with: Litigation Practitioner Mary Anne Mellow Sandberg Phoenix & von Gontard WJA 2018

Joan Lockwood was inspired to become a lawyer, the first in her family, when Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981. At the time, she saw herself as a criminal-defense attorney. “I was 14 ...

Tagged with: Gray Litigation Practitioner Lockwood Ritter & Graham WJA 2018

Jessica Liss has been a catalyst for change in the Missouri employment-law landscape. She recently spearheaded the merger of her St. Louis law firm with a boutique-employment firm, is overseeing an upcoming office move as the firm’s managing principal and ...

Tagged with: Jackson Lewis Jessica Liss Litigation Practitioner WJA 2018

Maureen Bryan has been a partner at Armstrong Teasdale for 10 years, but there was a time when her dream job was practicing sports medicine. She studied the subject at the University of Arizona and imagined that she would launch ...

Tagged with: Armstrong Teasdale Litigation Practitioner Maureen O. Bryan WJA 2018

After graduating from law school, Springfield attorney Nancy Price was quick to find a practice area that spoke to her: criminal-defense work. Price graduated from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1993 and joined the federal public defender’s ...

Tagged with: Law Office of Nancy Price Litigation Practitioner Nancy Price WJA 2018

Carolyn Buschjost never expected to go into family law. As a student at Saint Louis University School of Law, Buschjost said she knew she wanted to be in court. She just didn’t know where she’d end up. “At one point ...

Tagged with: Carolyn Buschjost Litigation Practitioner Williams Robinson Rigler & Buschjost WJA 2018