GORNY DANDURAND - Key Persons
Linda has 20+ years of paralegal support and trial experience. She provides kindhearted, thoughtful, and knowledgeable assistance to our clients who are facing difficult circumstances. She works closely with both clients and attorneys throughout the entire course of each case and, through her specific and extensive experience drafting pleadings and discovery responses, is an invaluable part of Gorny Dandurand. She considers it an honor to work with Gorny Dandurand's team of legal professionals. Linda has three adult children, one 3-year granddaughter, and is expecting two grandboys (a week apart) in September of 2021.
Mallory joined Gorny Dandurand in February 2019. With more than ten years' experience as a legal assistant/paralegal in wrongful death, medical malpractice, and personal injury cases, our clients find comfort in Mallory's attention to detail and extensive research abilities. She combines compassion and understanding in her support of our clients while assisting them through the entire course of litigation. In her free time, Mallory enjoys spending time with her mini dachshund Fiona and her husband Jake. They are expecting their first baby in Summer of 2021.
In 2001, Mary and her husband relocated from central Missouri to the Kansas City area. She began working for Steve Gorny at a previous law firm. With the exception of a few years off to raise her five children, Mary has been Steve's assistant ever since. For the better part of two decades, Mary has been assisting clients from their initial contact with the firm through to resolution of their cases. Hers is the first voice many hear when they contact us for the first time. Mary provides our clients with her calm, steadfast presence throughout the course of their cases and is a vital part of the Gorny Dandurand team. In addition to her five sons, Mary has three grandchildren to keep her busy.
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.
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.