About Bart Baumstark
Bart Baumstark is a Managing Partner at O'Brien Law Firm, P.C. and serves as the firm's lead trial attorney and settlement negotiator in asbestos and mesothelioma cases. He graduated with honors from Saint Louis University Law School in 1996, earning the American Jurisprudence Award in both Evidence and Trial Advocacy and serving as a member of Moot Court and Law Review. Before joining O'Brien Law Firm in 2003, Baumstark worked as a criminal prosecutor in the St. Louis City Circuit Attorney's Office from 1998 to 2000, handling felony drug and weapons offenses, assaults, robberies, and home invasions. His civil trial work has included a $900,000 verdict in a repetitive trauma injury case and a $2,500,000 verdict in a catastrophic ear injury case.
He has also represented injured railroad workers and their families and has advocated before the Missouri legislature for asbestos victim protections. Baumstark is a regular presenter at continuing legal education seminars and a board member of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys. He is admitted to practice in Missouri and Illinois state and federal courts.
Proven verdicts and settlements at O'Brien Law Firm, P.C.
These results are credited to O'Brien Law Firm, P.C.. A result appears under an attorney's own name only when a published source names them as counsel on the case.
A St. Charles County judge entered a $300 million bench-trial judgment for a child, identified only as G.T., who was physically and sexually abused between the ages of three and five while in the care of Susan and James McLaurie, though one defendant died before the suit was filed and the only known insurance was a $303,000 policy.
A St. Charles County jury awarded $75 million, including $25 million in punitive damages, to the parents of Krystofer Batsell, a 21-year-old killed when a driver fleeing police at more than 100 mph crashed into his car. The defendant is serving a 15-year prison sentence for second-degree murder, and the judgment is effectively uncollectable.
On April 27 and 28, 2023, a bus driver for the Crawford County R-1 School District in rural Missouri molested a female student under the age of 12 on his route, and the bus's surveillance cameras recorded it. The driver, James H. Philpot, had a California record going back more than fifty years, including a 1968 indecent exposure charge and a charge of assault with intent to rape, yet the district hired him in 2021. Philpot pleaded guilty on February 5, 2024, to one count of molesting a child under 12 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Rather than sue, the family filed a charge with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights, and the district agreed in April 2024 to pay $3.1 million, settling before the commission issued a right-to-sue letter and before any lawsuit was filed. The girl's attorney, Grant Boyd, said the evidence he reviewed showed the district knew of Philpot's prior sex offense convictions, and that the family had been told the district's screening looked back only 20 to 25 years.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
