Sure, law school is invaluable, Jacob Manbeck notes.
Up to a point.
“At law school, they’ll teach you the law, and they’ll teach you how to pass the Bar, but they don’t teach you much about the practice,” Manbeck notes.
Those lessons don’t come until after graduation.
For Manbeck, it came during his past five years as a lawyer working with local attorneys Bob Johnson and Daniel Schowengerdt.
“Johnson and Schowengerdt kind of gave me a business degree,” Manbeck said.
His experience there led Manbeck to opening his own law office earlier this month in the old Class Act Salon building at 10 E. Jackson Ave.
Manbeck, 31, will continue offering the same type of legal advice he’s provided all along, typically dealing with clients in family law, criminal defense, civil cases, oil and gas matters and real estate.
“To practice around here, you can’t really focus on just one field,” he said. “You either know how to do it or learn how to do it when it walks in the door. That was our policy at Johnson and Schowengerdt, and I’m pretty much bringing it with me.”
Manbeck joined Johnson and Schowengerdt after earning his law degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He completed his undergraduate work at Pittsburg State University.
Prior to that, he was a 2010 Humboldt High School graduate.
Manbeck offers high praise for his old bosses for readying him for his own practice.
“I have the utmost respect for both of them,” Manbeck said. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without their help.”
Assisting Manbeck is office manager Edye Newkirk, who formerly worked at Johnson and Schowengerdt as well, but left the legal profession altogether during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“She was my first call when I decided this might be a possibility,” Manbeck said. “She’s a very important part of my practice. I’m on the road so much, or in court so much, I have to be able to trust somebody to manage things back here. She does that.”
A chance conversation with Manbeck’s wife, Toni, with Lauren and Dakota Hufferd, who owned the Class Act Salon building up until December, helped cement his decision to branch off and start his own practice.
“My wife got a text asking if we knew of anybody looking for a building,” Manbeck said. “I said, ‘Tell her it’s done. We’re buying it.’”
