BUSINESS PERSONNEL: PONDER EARNS LON O. HOCKER AWARD

Michael Ponder, attorney at Thomasson, Gilbert, Cook & Maguire, L.C., in Cape Girardeau, has received the Lon O. Hocker Award from the Missouri Bar.

The Hocker awards are presented to three outstanding young attorneys each year -- one from the Kansas City area, one from St. Louis, and one from the rest of the state.

Ponder concentrates his law practice in Southeast Missouri and St. Louis in litigation of plaintiff's products liability and medical malpractice suits. During the past 10 years, he has successfully litigated injury cases involving medical devices, industrial furnaces, chemical exposure, birth injuries and automotive accidents. He holds record verdicts for products liability and employment discrimination.

Ponder, received his bachelor of science degree in business administration in 1986 from Central Methodist College, and his law degree in 1990 from the University of Missouri.

He is past co-chairman of the Missouri Bar Tort Law Committee and past assistant editor of the Missouri Bar's Courts & CLE Bulletin. He is admitted to practice in both Missouri and Illinois, and is a member of the American Bar Association, the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys and the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

Donald P. Thomasson, the senior attorney in Ponder's firm, was the first attorney in Southeast Missouri to receive this award, in 1960.