Our Appellate Practice

Concentration

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

Jonathan is admitted to practice before all state and federal 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 engages in other related matters, including:

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

• Amicus briefs in appellate courts to voice non-litigants’ perspectives on important matters
   

• Extraordinary writs to bring otherwise unappealable issues before appellate courts
   

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

• Post-trial proceedings in civil and criminal 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 been counsel of record in more than 150 reported appellate decisions 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 $700 million.

Jonathan has written more than 300 appellate briefs and presented more than 125 appellate oral arguments, including 16 before the Supreme Court of Missouri.

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

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• Obtaining millions of dollars’ worth of awards on appeal that lower courts previously had denied
   

• Upholding millions of dollars’ worth of challenged verdicts
   

• Restoring millions of dollars’ worth of verdicts in higher appellate courts that lower courts had overturned
   

• Obtaining new trials for unsuccessful parties in civil and criminal cases
   

• Obtaining outright reversals of felony convictions and sentences

Recognition

Jonathan Sternberg has earned a number 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.
   

  • Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers also selected 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 in 2016, 2019, and 2020.  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 the youngest person who Missouri Lawyers Weekly named to their “Power 30” list of the “30 most powerful appellate attorneys in Missouri” in 2021.
   

• 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.