Law Firm Husch Blackwell Launches Consulting Arm

May 12, 2025 - Husch Blackwell, a national Am Law 100 law firm, has launched Husch Blackwell Consulting (HBC), a subsidiary that will initially focus on consulting services for the higher education sector.

The Kansas City, MO-based firm says the consulting practice will provide strategic, financial, and operational advisory services to higher education clients facing myriad challenges, including declining enrolment, revenues, and state appropriations and endowment value.

The country’s more prominent colleges, such as Columbia University and Harvard University, have also attracted the ire of the current presidential administration for perceived transgressions in their DEI and campus antisemitism policies. Retribution has included massive cuts to federal funding as the Trump administration continues a general policy of federal spending retrenchment.

The new HBC team is led by Chuck Ambrose, a longtime college president, and features a team with more than 100 years of combined senior-level experience in higher education finance, athletics, education, enrolment management, and external relations.

The consulting practice will work alongside Husch Blackwell’s higher education legal practice.

“For decades, we have advised higher education leaders on their most challenging legal and regulatory issues. With the launch of HBC, we can now blend legal and consulting services into an unmatched package, each element of which strengthens the other to help clients manage the full range of interlocking issues they face,” said Hayley Hanson, partner and co-chair of Husch Blackwell’s higher education practice.

Ambrose, who joined Husch Blackwell in 2023 as a senior education consultant, has 23 years of experience as a college president. He was previously chancellor of Henderson State University, president of the University of Central Missouri, and president of Pfeiffer University.

Ambrose has a doctor of education degree from the University of Georgia.

“HBC is designed to help schools unlock new opportunities for growth and long-term health and, working with Husch Blackwell lawyers, to navigate the legal and regulatory questions that inevitably arise along the way,” Ambrose said.

HBC’s offerings include strategic governance & leadership, financial stability, innovation driven partnerships and M&A, and house settlement impact assessment & planning (for athletics).

Husch Blackwell has more than 1,000 lawyers across 20+ offices.