Until the 2008 financial crisis, Mandi Hunter’s law practice focused on representing banks and lenders in litigation. During the recession that followed, she began more real estate transactions work, including loan modifications.
In the wake of the recession, Hunter saw a market in the Kansas City area for a law firm that was based on real estate and secured transactions work —a firm that could handle a matter “from the ground up.”
Hunter realized her vision in 2014 and opened the Hunter Law Group, P.A., a full service real estate-focused firm.
Today that law firm is staffed by four attorneys who have more than 90 years of experience between them: Hunter, Stephanie Hammann, Susan DeCoursey and Christine Schlomann. The firm also has one paralegal.
The firm handles both real estate litigation and transactions work. Their clients include banks, agencies and brokerages, contractors, developers, investors and others with matters that touch on real estate.
“We know how to get a deal done,” said Schlomann, who recently joined the firm.
Hunter said the attorneys in her firm give clients a more personal level of service than the larger law firms at more client-friendly rates.
“We’re just as effective but much more efficient. We’re not burdened by the red tape of the big corporate firm. It gives us more flexibility,” said Hunter.
“We have a really collegial environment, and I feel like we have that with our clients too,” said Hunter.
Hunter said the biggest challenge the firm currently faces is litigation during COVID.
“It’s a whole different ballgame in terms of practicing. How you’re interacting with the courts and opposing counsel, depositions, trials, that’s been the biggest impact on our practice due to the pandemic,” Hunter said.
“It’s very hard to do an evidentiary hearing or a trial with everyone in a different room, and all you see is just what you can see in front of the camera,” said Schlomann.
Hunter said she does not have any current plans to grow the firm, but the firm does have the ability to grow and adapt if the need arises, as they have from the beginning.
“There is not much that walks through the door that we would have to send away,” said Hunter.