On its website, Lathrop Gage boasts that it “is considered the oldest continuously operating law firm west of the Mississippi River.”

So when the firm closed its office last month in Springfield, Missouri, following the departure of 11 lawyers for Am Law 200 rival Kutak Rock, the news raised a rather important question. Was Lathrop Gage, now under new management and having expanded in Boston and Los Angeles in recent years, forsaking its Midwestern-ness in a bid to join the coastal (legal) elite?