Nikki was born and raised in West Plains, Missouri, and graduated from West Plains High School in 2008. Two years before she graduated from high school, after her sophomore year and at the age of 15, Nikki took a summer job working for the Henry & Williams law firm, where her Uncle, Lynn Henry, was the Senior Attorney. When the summer came to an end, Henry & Williams asked Nikki to stay on and she worked at the firm after school in the evenings, on holidays, and summer vacations throughout her junior and senior years of high school.
Upon graduating from high school, Nikki continued to work for Henry & Williams for the next four years while she worked her way through college. After obtaining her Associates degree in 2009 from Missouri State University and her Bachelor’s degrees in psychology and criminal justice from Drury University in 2012, and after having become the senior paralegal and trial assistant at Henry & Williams, Nikki decided to pursue a career as a trial attorney.
Nikki applied to and was accepted for admission to the School of Law at the University of Missouri in Columbia. In her first year of law school, Nikki won the Moot Court Competition as the Top Oral Advocate in her law school class, and was chosen as the recipient of the Richard J. Chamier Award in Public Speaking. After completing her second year of law school, Nikki was selected by the Honorable Zel M. Fischer for a summer clerkship with the Supreme Court of Missouri. During her time in law school, Nikki also received Excellence Awards for the highest grade in her class in the subjects of Pretrial Litigation, Emotional Intelligence, and Insurance Law.
After graduating from law school in December 2014, passing the bar exam, and obtaining her license to practice law, Nikki was hired as an Associate Attorney with Henry & Williams. Less than 3 months after she was admitted to the bar, Nikki helped Lynn try a no-offer dangerous highway wrongful death case against MoDOT, which resulted in a record verdict of $6,700,000.
Nikki is a member of the Missouri Bar Association, the 37th Judicial Circuit Bar Association, the American Association of Justice, and the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys. She has also been admitted to practice in United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. Nikki’s areas of practice are workers’ compensation, personal injury and wrongful death.
Nikki is married to Jordan Kinder, who is the Animal Health Specialist at Hirsch Feed and Farm Supply in West Plains. She and Jordan have one son, Boden.
