One of three female managing partners with Kansas City-based Husch Blackwell LLP, Virginia Fry moved into the primary leadership position in Springfield with the exit this year of seven partners, including six who started a Springfield office for another Kansas City firm.
Managing Partner Gary Powell was among those six partners to leave the company last month to start a local office for Spencer Fane Britt & Browne LLP. Others were Charles Cowherd, Mike Nichols, Jason Smith, Richard Walters and Shawn Whitney. Another partner, Richard Russell, left Husch Blackwell to join Ollis and Co., according to
Springfield Business Journal archivesSBJ's featured guest this morning for its monthly 12 People You Need to Know editorial series, Fry said Husch Blackwell is in the process of determining if additional partners or hires are needed.
"The great thing about Husch Blackwell is we've got a lot of bench strength and a lot of depth in our firm. It's not like we're in any position where we need to go out to immediately find somebody," Fry said. "We'll evaluate that as we figure out what our highest needs are."
According to
HuschBlackwell.com, the Springfield office is staffed by 16, 10 of whom are partners. It no longer lists the local attorneys who left earlier this year.
"We're big enough," Fry said. "We have a team approach and a really good administrative staff. I think we all share in that. I probably have the [managing partner] title but I certainly don't do all of the work."
Contraceptive mandateFry, whose practice focuses on health care, life sciences and pharmaceuticals, represents such clients as Point Lookout-based College of the Ozarks in its fight against the Affordable Care Act.
In 2012, the college sued the federal government, claiming the contraceptive mandate of the ACA violated its religious beliefs.
Around the same time, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. filed suit, as well. The case, which went on to a Supreme Court decision and gained national attention, also raised questions about the contraceptive mandate. The court ultimately sided with Hobby Lobby, effectively ruling private, closely held businesses could be exempt from the mandate.
Like Hobby Lobby, Fry said College of the Ozarks took issue with the portion of ACA requiring employee health plans cover abortifacients, including Ella and the Plan B “morning after pill."
"The first thing that happened with the Affordable Care Act is the government recognized religious institutions needed to be treated separately. That's one of the founding principles for this country," Fry said. "The problem was that they defined religious groups very, very narrowly.
"They had borrowed that language from New York and California and tried to fit it in to the hastily put together piece of legislation, and it caused a lot of angst among religious groups."
Fry said lawsuits were filed because the government was trying to define who was "religious enough."
Fry said College of the Ozarks, a pervasively religious organization, did not face the same hurdles as Hobby Lobby because it's not a corporation. She said the government has attempted to take the contraceptive issue out of C of O and similar organization's hands, in which organizations fill out forms to receive abortive drugs for free. The problem there, Fry said, is the organizations are still authorizing drugs on their health care plans they consider to be objectionable.
"That is still an issue that is very alive in the courts," she said.
