“Experience, Knowledge and Dedication – Working for Your Family”
Jasper County from Birth
Joe was born and raised in Jasper County, Missouri. His family has roots here for over a century. His father, Jerry, and his Grandfather, Joe, were machinists and tool-and-die makers. Joe’s brother, Josh, now continues that work at All-Tech Engineering in Webb City, Missouri, a business he opened in 2008. Joe’s mother, Lucinda, worked in city government and later as a paralegal. She is married to The Honorable Richard Copeland and they live in Webb City.
Joe worked for his uncle Don Shoup on his farm in Carl Junction, Missouri in the summers and later in his machine shop in Joplin. During the summer while in college Joe worked for Morton Booth gun cabinet manufacturer in Carterville on the loading docks and in the warehouses.
Education
Joe attended Webb City Schools and graduated with honors in 1991. He played football, wrestled and played golf for Webb City and still passionately follows local high school and college sports teams. He then attended The University of Missouri – Columbia, graduating summa cum laude with Honors in May of 1995.
Joe immediately enrolled in law school at Mizzou the following fall. He graduated in 1998 in the top third of his class and earned several competitive awards based on courtroom advocacy, including the 1996 moot court champion and captain of the 1997 Mizzou “A Team.” He was also awarded the National Moot Court Prize, the Fred L. Howard Prize for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy, the Roscoe Anderson Award for Excellence in Moot Court, and the Thomas E. Deacy, Jr., Prize in Trial Advocacy. He was inducted into the Order of the Barristers and was a member of the Board of Advocates Executive Committee while serving as the 1997 Tournament Director.
In his second year of law school, Joe was the center of a “lost and found” story. Joe found a wallet at the University of Missouri’s Student Rec Center at closing time. The wallet had a large amount of cash inside but no identifying information. He returned the wallet the next day when the student who lost the wallet posted a sign. In appreciation, the student contacted the student newspaper, the “Maneater,” who ran the story on the front page.
🔗 "MU Student Returns Lost Wallet"
The story was picked up by the University Chancellors, who invited Joe to speak at their monthly luncheon. The positive publicity the story generated for the law school led to the Dean appointing Joe as the Chairperson of the Law School’s Honor Code Committee, a body designed to self-govern ethical violations among the students.
Experience
The defining characteristic of Joe’s campaign is his experience. He is a practicing litigator with over 15 years of experience throughout Southwest Missouri. He has practiced in multiple counties all over the state, including Springfield, Kansas City and St. Louis, and at multiple levels, including multiple appearances in the Court of Appeals and the Missouri Supreme Court.
After graduating law school in 1998, Joe began practicing at the Law Firm of Neale & Newman in Springfield, Missouri. Neale & Newman was the largest law firm in Missouri outside of Kansas City and St. Louis at that time . It was a great place to start, as he was given free rein to try as many cases and areas of law as he wanted. He handled the firm’s criminal defense needs, as well as insurance defense, workers compensation (both from the employee and employer side), personal injury (again, both plaintiff and defense), Landlord-Tenant matters, Probate Court, and family law. It was at this point Joe first started working with families growing through adoption, an area that would become a much larger part of his life and practice when he moved back to Jasper County in 2002.
Joe opened his own firm, The Hensley Law Firm, in 2002. He also became a licensed guardian ad litem. His own parents divorced when he started high school, and he felt a personal obligation to represent children in the center of custody disputes as well as those who have been the victims of child abuse and neglect. Joe went through training in 2004 to become a certified mediator. He has since been appointed by the Jasper County Judges numerous times to work with families in conflict.
In 2003, Joe was hired by the County to take over as the Jasper County Juvenile Office Attorney. This was a unique position, blending qualities of a prosecutor and litigator for crimes committed by defendants 17 years or younger. It was during this time he handled the Memorial Middle School shooting case, which received coverage locally and nationally. The trial was said to be Jasper County’s first certification trial of a serious crime in nearly 20 years.
🔗 "Joplin Teen to Stand Trial as Adult"
The position also required Joe to represent the Juvenile office whenever it filed petitions against parents, guardians, or those in a child’s family who abused or neglected children. Unfortunately that caseload was so heavy that Joe was in court nearly every week, all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as half of the day on Wednesdays. As both a Guardian ad litem and the Juvenile Office attorney, he walked into several homes from which children were removed and witnessed first hand the severity and prevalence of child abuse and neglect in our area, as well as the damage that drugs have on both parents and children. When he was not working for the Juvenile Office, he represented a broad variety of clients in all areas of the law.
In September of 2006, Joplin attorney Dan Scott was appointed by Governor Matt Blunt to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District. Judge Scott was formerly the Jasper County Special Prosecutor, handling cases for the Prosecutor’s office whenever there was problem or conflict preventing the Prosecutor’s office from handling the case. Joe was called on by the Jasper County Judges at the time to take over this position.
In March of 2007, a significant opportunity presented itself. After some discussions with another local attorney, John Nicholas, they decided to partner and open “The Law Office of Hensley & Nicholas, L.L.C.” They kept an office in Joplin and opened a second office in Carthage. Though Joe had to step down from the Special Prosecutor’s position (John Nicholas is an Assistant Prosecutor, which created a conflict of interest) he decided this was a good time to commit himself fully to the adoption practice he found so fulfilling and challenging. Therefore he stepped down from the Juvenile Office Attorney position and went into private practice full time with Mr. Nicholas.
Joe has handled hundreds of adoptions in the last ten years. Though adoptions are private and closed trials, one high profile adoption captured national attention in 2009. Joe represented Seth and Melinda Moser in the adoption of their son, James. The case was appealed to the Southern District Court of Appeals and then to the Missouri Supreme Court, which held Jamison would stay with the Mosers but the case would need to be retried. Joe took on multiple attorneys from Seattle, Washington, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Joplin who had the backing of multiple special interest groups, the ACLU, and the Guatemalan government. After a hard fought two week trial, the truth finally came out, and the Mosers received a landslide victory.
The trial judge’s opinion was backed up by an overwhelming affirmation by the Missouri Court of Appeals which heavily criticized the biological mother and her family’s deception over the prior 4 years of litigation.
🔗 "Moser Missouri Court of Appeals Affirmation"
Joe’s practice today is focused on representing area families in Court every day building families through Adoption and Guardianships. He is the only Jasper County attorney to be inducted into the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys (AAAA). AAAA is a national association of approximately 330 attorneys, judges and law professors in the United States and Canada who have distinguished themselves in the field of adoption law and are dedicated to the highest standards of practice in the field. Membership is by invitation only based on strict criteria of experience and excellence in the practice of adoption. Fellows of the Academy must have acted as counsel in a variety of adoptions, including foreign and domestic, intra and interstate placements, and have maintained their practice according to the highest standards of ethics, competence and professionalism. Its fellows are experts in the complexities of all facets of adoption law as well as interstate and international regulations surrounding adoption. The Academy was formed to study, encourage, promote and improve the laws and practice of law pertaining to the adoption of children and the creation of families throughout the United States and abroad. Joe was formally inducted in San Diego in April of 2013.
Family Life
Joe married another Jasper County native, Dina (Moore), in 2000 in Carthage at the historic Phelps House. Joe’s aspirations even before law school were to become a Judge and serve the people where he grew up. Therefore they moved back to Jasper County in 2002. Joe and Dina are the parents of Ella (8) and Joe (6).
They are members of Carterville Christian Church.
Service
Dina is active in the children’s ministry at Carterville Christian Church. Joe has served on several area boards, including the Board of Directors for the Joplin Y, and was a founding member of the Board of Directors for Crimestoppers. Joe and Dina worked as Big Brother/Big Sister volunteers for several years. Joe currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Webb City R-7 Schools Foundation, Inc.
Joe speaks regularly and is a contributor to area groups on the topic of orphans, foster care, and adoption. He also teaches other attorneys in the areas of adoption and domestic law.