Founding member of Gorny Dandurand
Steve Gorny is the founding member of Gorny Dandurand. He graduated magna cum laude from the Washburn University School of Law in 1994, where he served as an Editor for the Washburn Law Journal. Prior to attending law school, he earned bachelor’s degrees in political science and sociology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Throughout his career, Steve’s trial work has brought about unprecedented results. In 2002, Steve’s client was awarded the largest medical negligence verdict in Cole County, Missouri. In 2006, Steve and a former partner obtained the seventh largest trial verdict in the United States, and the largest non-punitive wrongful death verdict in Missouri history. In 2018, he obtained the largest, and perhaps only, plaintiff’s verdict in Ford County, Kansas. In 2021, Steve represented a young boy severely injured at a daycare and secured a verdict on his behalf in excess of $41,000,000, which is believed to be the largest single-plaintiff verdict in the history of Kansas. In 2022, Steve obtained verdicts for clients injured by physicians in Shawnee County, Kansas ($1,035,000), Wyandotte County, Kansas ($4,000,000), and Jackson County, Missouri ($749,000).
For ten years, Steve served on the Executive Committee of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys and was its President in 2018-2019. He is a member of AAJ’s Interstate Trucking Litigation Group and served on the advisory board of the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys. He continues to be active in both organizations.
He is a member of the Missouri Bar, The Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association, The Kansas Bar Association, and The Kansas Trial Lawyers Association. Recently, Steve was inducted into the American Board of Trial Advocates – an organization reserved for those attorneys who have considerable experience in trial and arbitration. In 2025, Steve became the Membership Chair of the local chapter of ABOTA.
Steve has been selected to the prestigious Best Lawyers in America every year since 2009. He has been selected as a Missouri and Kansas Super Lawyer every year since 2006. The National Trial Lawyers Association has designated Steve a Top 100 Trial Lawyer as well as a Top 25 Medical Malpractice Trial Lawyer. He has been selected to the Nation’s Top One Percent by the National Association of Distinguished Counsel and is a member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum of which fewer than 1% of U.S. lawyers are members. In 2023, the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys bestowed upon Steve its highest honor, The Thomas G. Strong Trial Attorney Award.
Steve is a former Executive Committee member and former President of the Mid-America Chapter of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. A life-long runner, Steve ran numerous marathons and ultra-marathons in support of charitable causes. Throughout 2006, he ran one 26.2-mile marathon each month to raise more than $35,000 for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. In 2009, he completed a 100-mile ultra-marathon to benefit The LLS in honor of a family friend battling the disease. In 2012, he ran across the State of Kansas, a total of 234.7 miles, to raise more than $85,000 for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research in honor of his father who suffered from the disease.
Speeches and Presentations
