 Ellinger Bell is pleased to announce that Cole Bradbury has joined the firm, bringing nearly two decades of Missouri litigation, municipal, and real estate development experience to the practice.
Bradbury comes to Ellinger Bell from public service. From 2023 to 2026, he served as City Attorney for Osage Beach, Missouri, where he led the City through some of its most consequential economic incentive matters — most notably the $496 million Lakeport Oasis development, which combined a TIF, CID, and TDD with a $130 million bond issue through the Missouri Development Finance Board. He has structured and litigated incentive financing on both the public and private sides, alongside the contract, land use, and inverse condemnation questions that tend to follow. His trial and appellate work has produced results with statewide implications. In 2026, working with Ellinger Bell, Bradbury cleared the way for the first new landfill permitted in Missouri in 24 years, overturning a Pettis County order that had blocked the project. In 2024, he persuaded the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to strike down a section of the Missouri Constitution as a violation of the First Amendment. He has also secured two appellate writs for the City of Osage Beach and, as City Prosecutor, tried dozens of cases — including a DWI conviction obtained after the line-of-duty death of the arresting officer. Bradbury began his career representing developers and homeowners in real estate and business litigation, work that has expanded over the years to include TIF disputes, First and Fourteenth Amendment claims, inverse condemnation, and WARN Act matters. Earlier in his career, he served two terms as Municipal Judge for the City of Iberia, Missouri, and worked in the office of Governor Matt Blunt from 2007 to 2008. He earned his J.D. from the University of Missouri School of Law in 2010, where he served as Associate Editor of the Missouri Law Review and was a member of the Moot Court team and Board of Advocates. During law school, he interned for U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond W. Gruender of the Eighth Circuit and U.S. District Judge Nannette K. Laughrey of the Western District of Missouri. His honors included the R. David Day Trial Advocacy Award, the Chamier Award in Public Speaking, the Roscoe Anderson Award for Excellence in Advocacy, and the Excellence for the Future Award in Professional Responsibility. At Ellinger Bell, Bradbury will continue his work in complex litigation and real estate development, with a particular focus on trial and appellate matters in Missouri state and federal courts. Comments are closed.
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