Stinson Managing Partner Mark Hinderks Receives Weary Award for Ethics Program

05.20.2019

Stinson LLP Managing Partner Mark Hinderks will be honored as one of three recipients of the Kansas Bar Foundation's Robert K. Weary Award at a dinner on June 20. The recipients founded and present a unique legal ethics program weaving required ethics education into a comedic and dramatic stage show, with all proceeds going to charitable organizations and scholarships.

The Robert K. Weary Award recognizes attorneys and firms that have made significant contributions and demonstrated a commitment to the goals of the Kansas Bar Foundation in honor of Weary, a member of the KBF's Board of Trustees from 1994 to 2000.

Hinderks is being recognized for co-founding and organizing Ethics for Good, a one-of-a-kind program providing lawyers with required ethics education in two annual stage shows in the Kansas City area. Ethics for Good began 20 years ago with a founding cast of three, and now includes eight cast members, including two appellate judges, Hinderks and Stinson partner Todd LaSala, drawing about 600 attorneys each year. More than $700,000 in proceeds have been donated to local and regional charities, and law school and paralegal scholarships since inception.

"I am grateful for the Kansas Bar Foundation for this award and to the Foundation and the Kansas Bar Association for enthusiastic support of Ethics for Good for many years. With my co-founders Judge Steve Leben and Stan Davis, we have been able to make otherwise dry and technical legal ethics education entertaining, lively and often irreverent, while at that same time enlisting our audiences to participate in doing good by donating their fees," Hinderks said. "We now have a dedicated inter-generational cast and hope that this fun and rewarding concept will continue into the future." 

In addition to serving as the firm's managing partner, Hinderks is a member of its executive committee and board of directors. He has led (or co-led) the firm since 2010, successfully steering the firm and its constituents through a period of strategic growth, including three mergers. Before becoming Stinson's managing partner, Hinderks served as one of the firm's leading trial lawyers, handling large matters for key clients across the U.S. In recognition of his experience and success, he was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.