Missouri Lawyers Awards 2021: John Kennyhertz, Kennyhertz Perry By: Alan Scher Zagier Special to Missouri Lawyers Weekly February 8, 2021
John Kennyhertz
Law Firm Leaders
From business litigation to intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions to collegiate sports, the breadth of practice areas at Kennyhertz Perry literally spills across the Kansas City firm’s website with still more updates to come.
“We’re willing to try new things and step into new areas,” Managing Partner John Kennyhertz said of his and co-founder Braden Perry’s shared approach to business development at their eight-year-old firm.
“We like to be the attorneys that tell our clients how to do something rather than tell them they can’t. We try to think out of the box, and I think our clients appreciate that, especially the entrepreneurs.”
Taylor Rickard of the Law Office of Kent Gipson, for their work in freeing a wrongfully convicted man whose case was championed by WNBA star Maya Moore.
Athena Dickson of Siro Smith Dickson, who won a significant jury verdict for a wrongfully terminated shopping district manager.
Natasha Scruggs of The Scruggs Law Firm, whose work to improve society ranges from an annual law camp to advocating for the voting rights of formerly incarcerated people.
Sarah Bardol of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, who took part in a food distribution program to help those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Missouri Lawyers Awards 2021: Patrick J. Whalen, Spencer Fane
Patrick J. Whalen
Patrick J. Whalen has a simple formula for success.
“I think it starts with servant leadership,” he said. “You get a lot of that in leadership literature, and it can mean different things to different people.”
Whatever it means for Whalen, it is certainly working. The St. Louis native and University of Texas School of Law graduate has put together a solid track record as chair and managing partner at Spencer Fane. The firm now counts more than 300 attorneys an increase of 21 percent since the end of 2018 with new offices in Houston, Minneapolis and Tampa. Profit jumped by nearly 20 percent in 2019.