Elaine Koch serves as the firm’s Global Leader of the Labor and Employment Group. She has over twenty-five years experience as a trial lawyer. Her practice focuses primarily on employment litigation, civil rights litigation and business torts, in addition to counseling clients on employment issues. She has tried a wide variety of jury trials in state and federal court. She has also tried arbitrations, bench trials, and the largest individual taxpayer case in the history of the United States Tax Court. Her litigation experience includes contract disputes, class actions, employment litigation, business torts, products liability, and civil rights litigation. She is a national speaker on employment law and litigation techniques, and she serves on the editorial board of the Practical Litigator. Ms. Koch has been an active member of the American Bar Association, serving in a number of national leadership roles in the Labor and Employment Section and frequently speaking at national meetings. She was awarded the David Dixon Award for outstanding achievement in appellate advocacy, the KCMBA President’s Award for founding an internship program for inner city youth, the Hon. H. Michael Coburn Community Service Award by Legal Aid of Western Missouri, and was inducted as a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. Ms. Koch has been repeatedly named by the Kansas City Business Journal as one of the "Best of The Bar" in the Kansas City area, and she has been repeatedly named a "Super Lawyer" in Kansas and Missouri (including "Top 50 Women" in Kansas and Missouri). Ms. Koch has also been named by USA Chambers as a leader in Labor and Employment.

Bar and Court Admissions

Missouri, 1988

Kansas, 1989

Texas, 1984

Education

Columbia University, J.D., Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, 1984

University of Southampton-England, Diploma in Graduate Studies, 1981

University of Tennessee, B.A., summa cum laude, 1980

Professional Affiliations

• The Practical Litigator, National Editorial Board Member
• Member of the Board of Directors of the Kansas City Bar Foundation
• Nelson Art Gallery Business Council Steering Committee
• ABA Sections of Labor and Litigation, the Missouri, Kansas, Texas, and Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Associations
• Women Lawyer’s Association
• Former Co-Chair with Judge Fernando Gaitan of the UMKC Law School Minority Affairs Committee
• Former Regional President and member of the Executive Committee of the NCCJ
• Former Chair of the Western District of Missouri Federal Practice Committee (Advisory Committee to the Court)
• The Pembroke Hill School, Board of Trustees