For attorney Paul Satterwhite, a partner with Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP, leadership starts with a positive attitude, but integrity and honesty also are essential.
“A person is only as good as his or her reputation, and I believe it is essential that I … never do anything to put my integrity at risk,” he says.
During law school, Satterwhite was the co-chairperson of the Craven National Moot Competition, a constitutional law competition for 26 to 40 law school teams. He says that role is his most significant leadership experience, because he helped manage 15 committee chairs and more than 100 volunteers and team members to pull off a successful event.
Satterwhite joined Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP in 2004, working in the firm’s Kansas City office. Today, as a partner in Springfield, Satterwhite is a member of the firm’s education and labor and employment practice areas. His areas of expertise include traditional labor law and the Family and Medical Leave Act, and he also has successfully defended several labor arbitrations.
In 2005 and 2007, Husch Blackwell Sanders recognized Satterwhite’s professional efforts with the Top Flight Award for excellence in teamwork.
Satterwhite puts those teamwork skills to work outside the firm, serving as vice chairman of the board of directors for Family Violence Center, which he will serve as chairman in 2011. He also serves on Springfield Public Schools’ Envision SPS advisory team committee.
Education is a familiar field to Satterwhite, who spent two years teaching in an inner-city school system in Compton, Calif., through Teach for America.
“I taught fifth and sixth grade and coached football, track and soccer,” Satterwhite says. “My primary message to the students I taught and coached was that I believed in them. I encouraged my students to embrace and seize any available educational opportunities despite the difficult circumstances they faced.”
Nancy Fazzino, executive director for the Foundation for Springfield Public Schools and a board member with Satterwhite for Family Violence Center, said she has seen firsthand what a caring heart he has for the center’s mission.
“Time and time again, he steps up to be a voice for the victims of domestic violence and to work with the board to become an even more cohesive unit,” she says. “Around the board table and in the agency, he works diligently to make everyone feel valued. The result is that a wonderful atmosphere that has been created where everyone feels their opinion not only matters, but is important.”[[In-content Ad]]
