Baker Sterchi Cowden & Rice Promotes Attorneys to Member Status

Baker Sterchi Cowden & Rice LLC announce that Robert F. Chandler and Jonathan E. Benevides have been elected to Member status effective January 1, 2016.

Robert F. Chandler, located in the firm’s St. Louis office, is a litigation attorney representing individual, institutional, and corporate clients for over 15 years. He has represented clients at all phases of litigation, including pre-suit assessment and negotiation, ADR, trial and at the appellate level. He has successfully defended cases involving consumer products, premises liability, asbestos and toxic tort claims, complex contract disputes, motor vehicle and trucking liability, and construction and surety claims. He actively practices in state and federal courts in both Missouri and Illinois. Chandler also assists locally owned and national corporations and business entities in complex commercial and employment litigation.  He is an active member of several legal associations.

Jonathan E. Benevides, located in the firm’s Kansas City office, received his Juris Doctor from the University of Kansas School of Law where he was an Articles Editor of the University of Kansas Law Journal.  Recognized as a 2014 and 2015 Kansas and Missouri Super Lawyer’s Rising Star, Benevides has vast experience in a broad range of general litigation matters.  He concentrates his practice in the areas of products liability, transportation, premises liability and commercial litigation. Benevides has defended a number of Fortune 500 companies in all phases of litigation.  He has both taken and defended hundreds of expert, corporate representative and fact witness depositions.  He also has extensive experience in arbitrating and mediating matters to successful conclusion.  Benevides has First and Second chair trial experience and has served as sole counsel at trials in the successful defense of contract and premises liability actions in the state and federal courts of Kansas and Missouri.