After more than four decades practicing law, John G. Simon has built a remarkable record of courtroom victories and incredible settlements for thousands of clients, oftentimes when the odds are not in his favor. The National Law Journal named the firm he founded in 2001 as one of the “winningest firms” in the U.S. In 2024 alone, Simon’s firm achieved three nine-figure verdicts totaling nearly $2 billion.
The firm now has more than 70 dedicated professionals, with a focus on plaintiffs’ litigation, including product liability, medical malpractice, business litigation, and class action cases.
John’s approach to managing his nationally successful firm is simple: The client comes first, prepare every case for trial, and cases are causes.
John’s commitment to these principles has driven unparalleled success in the courtroom—and more importantly, inspired meaningful change in our society. He, along with several of the attorneys at his firm, holds record-setting verdicts in multiple states.
John’s verdicts and settlements have held some of the biggest corporations in the world accountable for misconduct and shined a long-overdue national spotlight on critical, often ignored community safety issues.
John’s first nine-figure verdict came in 2000, when he represented a man who was severely injured after a tire exploded. The jury awarded John’s client $105 million after John proved the Firestone product had a decades-long history of accidents accompanied by internal corporate warnings that identified safety dangers.
John won an $8 million verdict against Laclede Gas Company in a wrongful death case on behalf of a man who died during a natural gas explosion at his home in Valley Park. The explosion happened when John’s client tried to use a barbecue grill. Unbeknownst to him, natural gas had leaked from a corroded copper line. He died 11 days later. John’s case investigation uncovered that tens of thousands of homes had been outfitted with the same faulty copper lines. The gas company launched a copper replacement program, and the Missouri Public Service Commission opened an official case to track it.
John won a $41.1 million verdict against a hotel after his client, a boxer, suffered brain damage during a fight that John proved became more severe due to the lack of an ambulance on site. John uncovered evidence in that case showing the hotel had considered retaining an ambulance prior to the fateful bout that night.
He also held the firefighter apparatus manufacturing industry accountable for making faulty oxygen equipment for firefighters. John’s investigation proved the company failed to issue any warnings about the alarm system after a different firefighter died under the same circumstances. The negligence he proved in that case forced the company to make masks safer for our first responders, and resulted in a $6.5 million verdict for John’s client, a firefighter whose oxygen tank failed him by not sounding its alarm bell when its levels got low, leaving him with brain damage.
In September 2023, John and his son, Johnny Simon, led a two-week trial against United Brands Products Design Development and Marketing, Inc. (an international distributor of nitrous oxide) and Coughing Cardinal, LLC (a local head shop). It resulted in a $745 million verdict after the jury found the companies guilty of conspiring to sell nitrous oxide – a known inhalant drug – as an inhalant to consumers. The underground industry led to a car crash that caused the wrongful death of a 25-year-old woman. The case has led some states and cities to enact legislation forbidding the sale of nitrous oxide products at smoke shops.
In March 2024, John and Simon Law Attorneys Tim Cronin and Nathan Perlmutter tried a case against a psychiatric treatment center, after a 13-year-old girl was raped. John’s firm proved the facility could have prevented the 2020 attack. It took the jury 6 ½ hours to deliver its verdict – $535 million – the largest known award in Illinois history. The case exposed how dangerous inadequate security and staffing are at behavioral health centers.
In November 2024, John and his son Johnny Simon revealed decades of corruption within the trucking industry during a two-week trial against a tractor-trailer manufacturer, where cost-cutting measures compromised trailer safety. Specifically, these practices weakened underride guards, the very features designed to prevent catastrophic injuries and fatalities when vehicles collide with and slide beneath trailers. The jury returned a $462 million verdict in favor of Simon’s clients. At the conclusion of that trial, the judge remarked to the jury that they had just seen “some of the finest lawyering in the country.”
Numerous news outlets have publicized the results of the case, and the industry is now on notice, facing public pressure to change.
That’s what John G. Simon means when he says his firm is where cases become causes.
John’s honors and awards reveal what John’s clients already know — he stands among the best litigators in the United States.
He was inducted into the Inner Circle in 2014, an exclusive organization of the Top 100 plaintiffs’ attorneys in the country. He is nationally ranked in Chambers USA, and his colleagues and peers have voted him the #1 lawyer in Missouri Super Lawyers for an unprecedented 7 consecutive years. John is also a past president of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis.
In 2025, Missouri Lawyers Media named John an Influential Lawyer of the Year, which is “awarded to the newsmakers – the Missouri lawyers who made substantial contributions to the legal community this year.”
Many of his firm’s other cases have made national news, with his work being quoted in USA Today, the New York Times, ProPublica, NBC Nightly News, Yahoo News, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, and many others.
John’s work ethic is rooted in his childhood experience, waking up at 4 a.m. to help his father run his family’s produce stand at the Soulard Farmer’s Market in St. Louis. His father, an immigrant from Lebanon, possessed an extraordinary work ethic that was both inspiring and humbling. Watching him and his mother raise 10 children while running a successful business instilled a deep respect for hard work and independence in John.
John got his law degree from St. Louis University School of Law and has served as an adjunct professor of Trial Advocacy there for more than 20 years.
He and his wife Margie have been married since 1985 and have three children – two of whom work as attorneys at Simon Law. John is the proud grandfather of six grandchildren.
He has served as a board member for Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, which provides legal services to those in need. He has also served as a board member for Access Academies as well as the Inns of Court. He currently serves on the board for St. Mary’s High School as well as Giddo Simon Ministries, a nonprofit he and his siblings founded in memory of their father to help provide produce to the homeless, just like his father did.
