Amy Lemley Recognized as 2017 Women in Business Honoree
by the Wichita Business Journal
July 13, 2017
The Wichita Business Journal, along with sponsor Cox Business, recognized 25 Wichita-area women, including Foulston Siefkin partner Amy Lemley, for their achievements in business, their impact on the community and their efforts to support others during the 2017 Women in Business Awards. A profile for each honoree was also included in the Wichita Business Journal.
As published in The Wichita Business Journal, read the full article here.
Amy Lemley is right at home in a place most people hope they never have to be — the courtroom.
Lemley, a partner at Foulston Siefkin LLP in Wichita, has spent a career as a trial lawyer becoming comfortable in the legal spotlight, one she says can at times shine more harshly on a woman.
“Female civil trial lawyers often face gender bias issues both explicit — and more often today — implicit,” she says. “As a trial lawyer, sometimes you have to make your way very publicly. The audience judging how well you deal with double standards and other forms of bias on any given day might include your own partners, judges, juries, mediators, other lawyers or clients.”
The keys to coping with that environment, she says, include having a sense of humor, tact, patience and the courage to push back when necessary.
Those traits have helped Lemley not just cope, but succeed throughout a legal career that includes several noteworthy firsts.
Among those were her becoming the first, and still the only, woman in Kansas to be part of both the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Board of Trial Advocates.
Her career has also seen her take on numerous other leadership roles within her industry, including being past chairperson of the Kansas Client Protection Fund Committee and a position on the Commission on Women in the Profession of the American Bar Association.
She has also been named to the Best Lawyers in America list for more than 20 years straight.
Foulston Siefkin Managing Partner Kevin Arnel says Lemley is a “passionate force” in the courtroom, whose advocacy for her clients carries over to her long history of working to make the industry better for her peers as well.
“Despite Amy’s exceptional career and personal leadership accomplishments, she has nevertheless remained a humble collaborator, and has a thirst always to learn and do more,” Arnel says.
That drive extends into the broader community, where Lemley’s nonprofit work has included roles serving on the board at the Mental Health Association of South Central Kansas, the Wichita YWCA, Wichita Fellowship Club and the American Heart Association.
And keeping all those duties running smoothly, she says, requires a piece of advice she wishes she got early on and now passes on to others.
“Make a plan, don’t just let things happen,” she says.