About Tom Stewart
Tom Stewart serves as a special consultant to O'Brien Law Firm, P.C., bringing extensive experience in consumer class action litigation, medical negligence, business disputes, and product liability matters. He was admitted to the Missouri Bar in 1986 and the Illinois Bar in 1987. Stewart holds a faculty position at Saint Louis University School of Law as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Trial Advocacy program, where he has coached trial competition teams and taught as an adjunct professor.
He also contributes to the faculties of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, the Missouri Attorney General's office, and The Missouri Bar Trial Institute. In 1997, the Missouri Bar Foundation honored him with the Lon O. Hocker Award for excellence in trial advocacy, and in 2007 he received the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys Outstanding Service Award. Stewart previously served as President of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys and has been a member of the 21st Circuit Judicial Evaluation Committee.
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.
