Missouri Lawyers Weekly Up & Coming Lawyers 2009

Five lawyers from Bryan Cave’s St. Louis and Kansas City offices have been selected as Up & Coming Lawyers for 2009 by Missouri Lawyers Weekly. Honorees will be listed in the Sept. 28 issue of the publication. Up & Coming Lawyers are younger than 40 or within their first 10 years of practice and are making a positive difference in the quality of justice while exemplifying the highest ideals of the legal profession.

Bryan Cave’s 2009 Up & Coming Lawyer honorees include:

St. Louis
Lee Marshall, leader of our Appellate Group, specializes in appellate and intellectual property litigation. He has represented clients in the United States Supreme Court and has presented oral argument before the United States Courts of Appeals for the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Federal Circuits. He is a member of the bar of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and an adjunct professor of law at Washington University, where he teaches the Appellate Clinic. Marshall is currently one of two Missourians appointed to the Federal Advisory Committee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit by Chief Judge James Loken.

Erika Z. Schenk focuses her practice in the preparation and negotiation of various commercial agreements, joint ventures, strategic alliances and mergers and acquisitions for both privately and publicly held companies spanning a wide range of industries, both foreign and domestic. She has advised both customers and vendors on large-scale outsourcing arrangements and has taught courses to clients in the areas of international sales, shipping and delivery. She is leader of the firm’s Commercial Practice Rapid Response Team.

Kansas City
Suzanne M. Rodekohr’s practice focuses primarily on advising public and private clients with respect to corporate and partnership tax planning, including acquisitions, mergers, reorganizations, spin-offs and restructuring transactions, plus structure, negotiation and documentation regarding same. In addition, she advises clients concerning choice of entity and general business law issues. Rodekohr was a judicial clerk for the Hon. John C. Minahan, Jr., United States Bankruptcy Court-District of Nebraska, and has experience with bankruptcy and bankruptcy-related tax issues. She is a member of the firm’s Recruiting Committee. She is the co-chair of the 2009 Heart of America Tax Institute and currently serves as the vice-president on the Board of Directors of Our Lady of Mercy Country Home, a not-for-profit organization committed to providing "care with dignity" for the elderly in Liberty, Mo., through senior apartments and a residential care facility.

Staci Olvera Schorgl focuses her practice in the areas of commercial litigation, products liability and employment litigation. Her experience includes litigation of a variety of complex commercial disputes including professional negligence, fraud, statutory claims, breach of contract and consumer protection. Schorgl also has experience prosecuting and defending non-competition, unfair competition, non-disclosure and trade secret claims and has provided counseling to clients in connection with matters involving electronic discovery. She is a member of the firm’s Recruiting Committee, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Mattie Rhodes Center, a non-profit organization in the Kansas City area which provides bilingual and bicultural mental health and social services.

Heather S. Esau Zerger practices in the areas of labor & employment, commercial litigation and securities enforcement, compliance & litigation. She has extensive trial experience, having first-chaired bench and jury trials in both state and federal court. She has obtained jury verdicts on behalf of both defendants and plaintiffs, recently having won an award on behalf of a client for $11.9 million and winning a directed verdict on behalf of another client in Jackson County Circuit Court. Her employment litigation experience includes representation of employers in defense of claims of race, age and sex discrimination, as well as retaliation and wrongful discharge. She also has experience before the 8th, 10th and 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. She is a member of the firm’s Recruiting Committee and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Harmony, a Kansas City organization committed to the eradication of bias, bigotry and racism.