Jamie integrates operational know-how, deep strategic understanding of the legal industry, and a willingness to disrupt established patterns to provide our firm with cutting-edge approaches to serving clients.
Over the course of a 25-year career in the professional services industry, Jamie has developed a keen awareness that client service and satisfaction are the foundation of any firm’s success. She has routinely been tasked with envisioning, building, and implementing service delivery models that challenge existing approaches and that drive institutional excellence.
As Husch Blackwell’s chief executive-elect—she will assume the chief executive role on February 1, 2024—Jamie works side by side with the firm’s current chief executive and others in firm leadership to guide the firm’s strategic direction and operations. As chief executive, Lawless will direct and oversee the overall performance, profitability, and finances of the firm, leading nearly 2,000 partners, attorneys, and business professionals. She will implement and execute the firm’s existing three-year strategic plan and play a principal role in the next strategic planning cycle. Lawless will lead all of the firm’s management and administrative departments and also oversee the initiatives and strategies implemented at the business-unit level by the firm’s six business units.
Before joining Husch Blackwell, Jamie spent a decade at Baker McKenzie, where she built from the ground up a business and alternative legal services center that served each of that firm’s 74 offices across 45 countries. During her tenure there, Jamie held many leadership roles, including chief operating officer for offices in Washington and New York, two of the country’s leading legal markets, while leading global modernization projects and earning the trust of lawyers, which enabled her to serve on the firm’s Global Leadership Team, Global Risk Committee, and North America Inclusion, Equity & Diversity Committee.
Jamie’s work is informed by a dual focus: creating exceptional client experiences and developing operational approaches that build and enhance cross-office, cross-disciplinary collaboration. In that work and throughout her career, she has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to build professional brands grounded in consistently excellent client service—from office to office and practice to practice—on an international basis.
A compassionate and optimistic leader, Jamie has excelled in the legal profession due to her ability to articulate clear business strategies that expand client relationships. Just as those client relationships drive Husch Blackwell’s success, Jamie has long recognized relationships as the critical factor in her success as a leader in the profession. She consistently builds personal relationships through an authentic style that emphasizes listening to and understanding others.