Anyways, their bios read:
Michael Burke is President and CEO of King Hershey, PC. He is a life long Kansas City resident and attended Rockhurst High School. He received his undergraduate degree in History from Georgetown University in 1970 and his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center where he was Research Editor for Law and Policy in International Business.
Mr. Burke has served in a variety of capacities on behalf of the City of Kansas City, Missouri including:
- . First District City Councilman
. Chair of the Public Improvements Advisory Committee (PIAC)
. Chair of the Impact Fee Advisory Committee
. Co-Chair of the 2007 Capital Improvements Sales Tax Campaign
. Co-Chair of the Downtown Bond Campaign
. Co-Chair of the 2005 Water Bond Campaign
. Chair of the All America City Committee
. Chair of the Kansas City Riverfest
. Board of Directors of the Convention and Visitors Association
. Chair of the Kansas City Port Authority
. Board of Directors of the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority
. Member and Subcommittee Chair of the Community Infrastructure Committee
. Chair of the Riverfront Development Task Force
. Member of the Advisory Committee on the Kansas City Development Code
. Advisory Committee Kansas City Trails Task Force
Mr. Burke is active in the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and the Northland Chamber of Commerce. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Greater Kansas City Chamber as well as Chair of the Kansas City Committee of the Chamber. He is a member of the Chamber's Kansas City Business Leadership Council working with the City of Kansas City on long range budget issues.
Mr. Burke's legal career which began in 1973 includes representation of a wide variety of both public and private clients in the area of land use, municipal law and real estate development. He was a founding member and legal counsel to the Platte County Industrial Development Authority. He currently serves on the technical legal advisory committee for the new City of Kansas City Development Code and is general counsel to the Kansas City Port Authority. Mr. Burke served as lead attorney in the City's and Port Authority's sale of the former Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base, a complicated transaction requiring the involvement of a dozen Federal, State and local agencies. Mr. Burke was also lead counsel on the sale of approximately 4,000 acres of industrial property in Kansas City to an affiliate of the Mormon Church.
Kansas City Magazine has recognized Mr. Burke's legal achievements for three years in a row with the 'Super Lawyer' designation as Top Attorney in the category of Government/Cities and Municipalities.
He currently serves on the Local Government Law and Real Estate Committees of the Kansas City and Missouri Bar Associations. He is a member of the American Bar Association.
Burke is going to be a strong Mayoral candidate and many believe he immediately becomes a tied front runner to Sly James.
Here is Sly James Bio:
Sylvester "Sly" James, Jr. was born on December 9, 1951 in Kansas City, Kansas. He has been married to Licia E. Clifton-James since 1981 and he is the father of four children: Eric, 37; Malik, 35; Kyle, 20; and Aja, 16.
He attended and graduated from Bishop Hogan High School in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1969. He was president of his junior class. While in high school, he was the lead singer in the Amelia Earhart Memorial Flying Band (later re-named Manchester Trafficway) from 1965 to 1970, during which the band was the opening act for the Jefferson Airplane during their performance in Kansas City.
He entered the United States Marine Corps in 1971. He was stationed in California, Japan and the Philippines where he served as a military policeman for four years, and received an honorable discharge in 1975.
Mr. James graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English (cum laude) from Rockhurst College in 1980. While in college, Mr. James was a member of the Student Senate and the TKE fraternity. Mr. James attended Syracuse University Law School from 1980 to 1981. He then transferred and received his Juris Doctorate (cum laude) from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1983. While in law school, Mr. James was a student director in the Legal Aid Clinic and a member of the Black Law Student Association moot court team, which placed second in the 1982 national competition.
Mr. James joined Blackwell Sanders Matheny Weary & Lombardi as an associate in August 1983. He became the first African-American partner in the firm's history on January 1, 1990. As an attorney at Blackwell Sanders, Mr. James practiced extensively in the areas of personal injury and insurance defense litigation.
In ten years of practice at Blackwell Sanders, Mr. James tried cases concerning legal malpractice, insurance contracts, malicious prosecution, personal injury and intentional torts. He was also appointed by the federal district court to represent defendants in several criminal cases, including United States v. Gilbert Dowdy, et al., a nine-week trial, in which he successfully defended Samuel Dowdy, the only one of 12 defendants who neither pled guilty nor was convicted.
On January 18, 1993, Mr. James and fellow Blackwell Sanders Matheny Weary & Lombardi partner Nancy Kenner, left to form their own firm, Kenner & James, P.C. The firm emphasized a practice in plaintiff's personal injury, medical malpractice, and nursing home negligence.
In December 1998, Paul Kavanaugh joined Kenner & James as a partner and the firm name changed to Kenner, James & Kavanaugh, P.C. The firm continued to emphasize its practice in the areas of personal injury, medical malpractice, and nursing home negligence.
In February 2002, Mr. James left the Kenner, James & Kavanaugh firm to form The Sly James Firm, Trial Lawyers, P.C., now The Sly James Firm, where he continues to emphasize a practice in plaintiff's personal injury, medical negligence, nursing home negligence and civil litigation.
Mr. James has an active and varied trial practice. He has tried cases concerning medical negligence, legal malpractice, personal injury, products liability, business disputes, and nursing home negligence in the federal and state courts of Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas.
In November 1994, he tried the case of Michael Smith, et al., v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company to a substantial verdict. He was one of 6 class counsel who represented 2100 Missouri prison inmates who were illegally housed in Texas. Working with other class counsel, Mr. James helped to obtain the largest known settlement at that time ($2.25 million) for prisoners against a private prison company in the United States. He was also on the Steering Committee and one of the class counsel representing victims of Robert Courtney, a pharmacist convicted of diluting chemotherapy medications of hundreds of cancer patients.
In nearly 30 years of practice, Mr. James has tried in excess of 85 cases to verdict. Mr. James has also been appointed by judges of the Jackson County Circuit Court to act as a special master in litigation cases. He has also acted as neutral mediator and arbitrator in excess of 100 cases.
Mr. James is active in political, community and civic activities. He has been a member and board secretary of the board of trustees of the Eye Foundation of Kansas City, Inc.; a member of the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City Education Committee; a member of the board of the United Way; executive board of the Committee for County Progress; the steering committee of the Partnership for Children, a joint project of the United Way and the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation; president of the board of Bishop Hogan High School; a member of the board of trustees of Notre Dame de Sion schools; a member of the board of Operation Breakthrough; and a member of the board and vice-chair of the Genesis School. He is also a graduate of the Kansas City Tomorrow program sponsored by the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City.
Mr. James was appointed to the board of directors of the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City, Missouri and to the board of the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (LCRA) by former Mayor Kay Barnes. Recently, he was also appointed to the boards of the Enhanced Enterprise Zones of Kansas City and the Jackson County Ethics Commission. He served as one of four co-chairs of the Save Our Stadiums committee, a successful tax initiative to refurbish the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City in 2006.
Mr. James was president of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association in 2003. Between 1992 and 2002, he was a member, secretary and later the president of the Missouri Board of Law Examiners. Mr. James is a director of the Kansas City Bar Foundation and vice president of the Public Interest Litigation Clinic. He was formerly the vice-president of the board of directors of Legal Aid of Western Missouri and treasurer of the Jackson County Bar Association.
In the past, he has also served as a member of the Missouri Bar Foresight Committee; the Missouri Supreme Court ad hoc Committee on Judicial Circuit Boundaries; the Missouri Supreme Court ad hoc Committee to examine Rule 2 (Judicial conduct), and chairman of the KCMBA Sports and Entertainment Law Committee. He has also served as the chair of the KCMBA Nursing Home Negligence Committee, as a member of the KCMBA CLE Committee; the chair of the KCMBA Emergency Preparedness Committee; the board of governors of the Missouri Bar Association; a master in division II of the KCMBA Inn of Court program; and a member of the Jackson County Bar Association.
He is currently the chair of the KCMBA Diversity Committee. He is a fellow of the American Bar Association and a member of the board of governors of the Missouri Association of Trial Lawyers (MATA).
Mr. James has spoken on various litigation and trial topics at ATLA/AAJ seminars in Puerto Rico, Toronto, Palm Springs, Hawaii, Seattle, Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, and Montreal, as well as ABA seminars in Toronto and Seattle.
He has spoken at numerous CLE programs in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Arkansas. He has also published articles regarding nursing home litigation in ATLA's Trial Magazine, as well as other writings for other publications and seminars.
- Bar Admissions:
- Missouri, 1983
- U.S. District Court Eastern District of Missouri, 1983
- U.S. District Court Western District of Missouri, 1983
- Education:
- University of Minnesota Law School, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1983
J.D., Doctor of Jurisprudence
Honors: Cum Laude - Rockhurst College, Kansas City, Missouri, 1980
B.A., Bachelor of Arts
Honors: Cum Laude
- Professional Associations and Memberships:
- Kansas City Bar Association, 1988 - 1993
- Member
- Jackson County Bar Association
- Treasurer
- Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys
- Member
- Heart of America United Way
- Member
- Committee for County Progress
- Member
- Kansas City Agenda
- Member
- Missouri Association of Trial Lawyers
- Board Member
- Missouri Board of Law Examiners
- Secretary
- Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association
- Co-Chair, Committee on Small Firm and Solo Practice
- Fraternities/Sororities:
- Tau Kappa Epsilon
There are certainly a lot of details like that to take into consideration. That’s a great point to bring up.
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