Graves Garrett partner Eddie Greim recently received the 2019 St. Thomas More Award from the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Kansas City during the 14th annual Red Mass held at St. Peter’s Parish in Kansas City, Missouri. The Mass was concelebrated by Bishop James V. Johnston and Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, the respective ordinaries of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, and Bishop Mark S. Rivituso, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

Erik Bendorf, board president of the Catholic Lawyers Guild, presented Greim with the award, given annually to a Guild member whose conduct in their practice and parish life is according to the standards of St. Thomas More. Greim is a member of the guild board, married with five daughters and active with Visitation Parish and School in Kansas City.

The Catholic Lawyers Guild of Kansas City and Catholic Bar Association host the Red Mass each year as part of a centuries-old tradition — first celebrated in 1245 in Paris and later spreading across Europe, offered just before an opening Court term and also as the opening of the judicial year of the Holy See’s Tribunal, the Sacred Roman Rota. The first Kansas City-area Red Mass occurred in the 1950s and was later revived in 2006, when the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Kansas City formed.

The Catholic Lawyers Guild of Kansas City is one of over 60 lawyers’ groups in the U.S. creating a local community for Catholic legal professionals to grow in the faith and challenge each other to live it in their professional and private lives. An affiliate of the Catholic Bar Association, which was founded in 2015, it intends to be the first national organization creating community and networking opportunities for Catholic legal professionals.

At Graves Garrett, Greim focuses his practice on free speech and election law, complex commercial litigation, internal investigations and whistleblower claims. His free speech and election law experience has included numerous constitutional challenges to election and campaign finance laws; representation of clients in state and federal ethics and campaign finance enforcement actions and investigations; initiative petition drafting and litigation; litigation and advice regarding First Amendment protections for petition circulation; representation of not-for-profit clients before state regulators; and advice on campaign and election law compliance.