Counsel that holds when
the matter is serious.

True Northwest Law Firm opened its doors in 1995 in Blue Springs, and has practised from Jackson County ever since. The firm was established on a straightforward premise: that competent representation should be available to ordinary people and ordinary businesses, and that it should be delivered by attorneys who answer their own telephones.

In the years since, the practice has grown to cover eight areas of law, but the structure has not changed. Each matter is assigned to an attorney who takes responsibility for it from the first interview through to its conclusion. Files are not passed between departments. When you telephone the office, you are not asked to describe your circumstances again to someone who has not read them.

The work itself falls into two broad categories. The first consists of matters brought against our clients or against their interests: a criminal charge, a lawsuit, a claim by a former employee, a petition for dissolution of marriage. In those matters our task is to reduce exposure, protect what can be protected, and secure the best available disposition. The second consists of matters our clients bring: a claim for injuries caused by another's negligence, a contract that must be enforced, an estate that must be administered, a business that must be formed or sold. In those matters our task is to obtain the outcome the law permits, and to do so without unnecessary expense or delay.

Preparation as a discipline

Most matters settle. That fact is frequently misunderstood to mean that preparation for trial is wasted effort. The opposite is true. The terms on which a matter settles are determined almost entirely by what the opposing party believes will happen if it does not. A file that has been thoroughly investigated, in which the witnesses have been located and the documents assembled and the expert opinions secured, settles on materially better terms than one that has not.

We therefore work every matter on the assumption that it will be tried. Evidence is preserved early, before memories fade and records are destroyed under ordinary retention schedules. Depositions are taken with the transcript's eventual use in mind. Where a matter genuinely should settle, that preparation is what makes a fair settlement possible.

Candour about outcomes

We will tell you what your matter is worth and what it will require. If a claim is weak, you will hear that at the first consultation rather than after a year of expense. If a charge is likely to result in conviction, we will say so and direct our efforts toward the disposition and the sentence rather than encouraging expectations that the evidence does not support.

This is not pessimism. It is the necessary basis of any decision a client has to make. A client who has been told only what they wished to hear cannot weigh a settlement offer, evaluate a plea, or decide whether to proceed at all. Our obligation is to place you in a position to decide, and then to carry out the decision you make.

The jurisdictions in which we appear

Our attorneys are licensed to practise in the State of Missouri and appear regularly in the circuit courts of Jackson, Cass, Clay and Platte counties, before the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, and in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. Where a matter requires representation in another state, we will tell you so at the outset and arrange competent local counsel rather than accept work we are not admitted to perform.