About Our Appellate Practice

Concentration

Jonathan Sternberg focuses his practice strictly on appellate litigation. This includes at every point in a case, not only briefing and arguing appeals and related actions, but also advising trial counsel on procedure and strategy at all stages. He brings a breadth of knowledge to difficult problems in virtually any subject area.

Jonathan is admitted to practice before Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois state courts, all federal district courts in Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois, every U.S. Court of Appeals circuit nationwide, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He often appears pro hac vice in other jurisdictions.

Besides actual appeals, Jonathan also regularly pursues other, similar matters, such as:

• Assisting trial counsel with motion practice, general research and writing, and error preservation
   

• Seeking extraordinary writs to bring unappealable issues before higher courts
   

• Habeas corpus and other post-conviction relief from criminal convictions and sentences
   

• Post-judgment proceedings in civil cases
   

• Declaratory actions and other procedures seeking to enforce or challenge a law
   

• Defending lawyers and judges in disciplinary matters
   

• Serving as an expert witness on appellate-related issues

Experience

Jonathan Sternberg has more than 125 reported appellate decisions to his name in a wide array of subjects, successfully pursuing commercial, constitutional, criminal, employment, estate, family, insurance, tax, and tort cases, among others. The total amount in controversy of all his cases involving money disputes exceeds $600 million.

Jonathan has written more than 250 appellate briefs and presented more than 100 appellate oral arguments, including 13 before the Supreme Court of Missouri.

Jonathan’s work has included a variety of high-profile cases with high stakes, such as:

• Persuading the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to allow a $3.8 million secured bankruptcy claim that two lower courts previously had denied
   

• Upholding tens of millions of dollars of verdicts
   

• Obtaining a $1.7 million insurance payout in the Supreme Court of Missouri that previously was denied
   

• Restoring a $475,000 insurance verdict in the Supreme Court of Missouri that a lower court had overturned
   

• Obtaining outright reversals of felony convictions and sentences
   

• Representing 150 businesses in a widely-publicized challenge to municipal smoking bans in Missouri, which the world’s largest premium cigar manufacturer joined

Recognition

Jonathan Sternberg has earned a variety of professional accolades for his work:

• He has received Martindale-Hubbell®’s highest possible peer-review rating for ethics and ability, AV® Preeminent™, every year since 2012.
   

• He has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America© for Appellate Practice every year since 2015, selected by his peers as one of the top 4% of attorneys in America (and the youngest listed in Missouri).
   

• He has been listed in Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers every year since 2014, as one of the top 5% of attorneys in Missouri.  In 2016 and 2019, Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers also listed Jonathan as one of both the “Top 100” attorneys in Missouri and Kansas combined and the “Top 50” attorneys in the Kansas City metropolitan area.  (Each year, he was the youngest attorney to achieve either distinction, let alone both.)  Previously, from 2010-2013, Jonathan was listed in Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers “Rising Stars,” as one of the top 2.5% of attorneys in Missouri under 40 years of age.
   

• He was elected by his peers to the Kansas City Business Journal’s “Best of the Bar” list in 2013-2016, as one of the top 200 attorneys in the Kansas City metropolitan area. 
   

• He was the only solo practitioner (and youngest person) who Missouri Lawyers Weekly selected as an “Up & Coming Lawyer” in 2009.