2026 Business Leaders of the Year: Craig Heidemann

Craig Heidemann has helped build Douglas, Haun & Heidemann into a firm that has recovered $234 million for injured clients and their families. But even though his name is on the letterhead, he stays deeply involved, close to the team he leads.

“Anyone can manage from a distance. I still try cases. I meet with clients. I review and sign all my letters. I am still the first call when something goes sideways,” he says. “Leading from the front is not a management strategy; it is the only way I know how to operate.”

Heidemann says he feels an obligation to make sure the firm, in continuous operation since 1912, continues to advance and grow. He adds that he takes an active role in mentoring the next generation of trial lawyers.

In the past decade, the firm expanded to a second office in Springfield and now has a team of 10 lawyers and 23 staff members. He says the size has allowed the firm to take on more complex cases.

“Preserving that small-firm culture while growing has required deliberate, sometimes difficult, leadership decisions, and I think we have gotten it right more often than not,” he says.

Heidemann says the best ideas at the firm often do not come “from the corner office” but from the paralegals, young associates and staff members.

“My leadership philosophy is simple: Hire people who are better than you at their jobs – are willing to learn; give them the tools they need, and then get out of their way,” he says.

Heidemann invests in others and the community. Several attorneys trained at the firm have gone on to build successful practices of their own, he says.

“I consider that a direct return on the investment this region has made in our firm,” he says.

Heidemann says leaders have to be willing to take the cases no one wants and do the tough work.

“That means going to trial when everyone expects you to settle, outworking the other side and being honest with clients about hard truths even when it costs you,” he says. “Sometimes it means guiding a client toward settlement when they want a trial they might not win.”

He says credibility is the “only currency” that matters for a trial attorney.

He adds one of the ways he supports the community is to represent people who cannot afford to fight back on their own. The firm handles contingency-free cases, which means the firm takes the financial risk so “ordinary people” can access the civil justice system.

“That access changes lives. When a family loses a breadwinner in a workplace accident and we recover damages that keep them in their home, that is community leadership in the most concrete sense I know,” he says.

Heidemann, who has been board president for Legal Services of Southern Missouri and Springfield Victory Mission, says he wants the firm to continue beyond its 110-plus years.

“That longevity is not an accident; it is the product of deliberate choices to reinvest here, to treat our clients with respect and to show up consistently whether the economy is good or not,” he says. “I intend to keep making those choices for as long as I am working.”