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Joshua Gillispie

Proven Verdicts
North Little Rock, AR

About Joshua Gillispie

Josh Gillispie has been practicing law since 2010. He is proud to have founded a firm in Arkansas that focuses almost entirely on representing victims of child sexual abuse and other crimes. Josh views each case as a battle in the war on child sexual abuse in Arkansas. Each case, Josh has learned, has the potential to increase the deterrence factor for organizations who enable child sexual predators to abuse their victims.

He believes that justice, in the context of child sexual abuse cases, is not about making the client whole, because that's not possible. What Josh offers each client is the type of justice he has learned is realistically possible in these cases, such as the opportunity to reclaim their story by standing up and striking back at those who caused their harm, the opportunity for their case to deter would-be perpetrators and enablers and thereby prevent future abuse, and the opportunity at meaningful monetary compensation. Josh's years of experience doing very little other than Arkansas child sexual abuse cases ranges from cases against the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts of America to daycare centers, the Department of Human Services, private schools, and everywhere in between that children are victimized. Raised in North Little Rock, Arkansas, he graduated from Hendrix College in 2003.

He holds a Master's in English Literature and briefly worked as a college English teacher prior to attending law school at the UALR William H. Bowen School of Law. He is licensed to practice in Arkansas, as well as U.S. Federal Courts. In 2017, he was named the Outstanding Young Trial Lawyer by the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association. Josh lives in Little Rock with his wife, Liz, and their two little boys, Grant & Oliver.

Proven verdicts and settlements

$110,040,000 ($110,000,000 compensatory plus $40,000 punitive)Verdict

On February 16, 2016 Daniel Ryals dropped his healthy 9-month-old son at Wendy Jo Strother's unlicensed in-home daycare in Mena, Arkansas. That afternoon Strother's daughter carried the baby into the local hospital with multiple skull fractures and bleeding in his brain. He is permanently blind and brain-damaged. Strother pleaded no contest to permitting child abuse and got probation. In November 2025 a Polk County jury awarded the family $110,000,000 plus $40,000 in punitive damages.

Polk County Circuit Court, Mena AR · 2025Premises LiabilityRead the full story →
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Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.

Education

UALR William H. Bowen School of Law
J.D.
Hendrix College
Undergraduate, 2003

Bar admissions & credentials

State Bar of Arkansas

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