Tim Dollar

About

It’s no surprise Tim Dollar is considered one of the top trial lawyers in America. He’s tried to verdict more than 250 jury trials, including numerous cases as a special prosecutor for the Jackson County, Mo. Prosecutor’s Office. In fact, Dollar is so effective in the courtroom, Jackson County has continued to contract with him for important homicide cases every year for the past 32 years.
Dollar is the first to tell you that having a compelling argument, command of the facts and a righteous cause does not necessarily translate to success in the courtroom. “You have to connect with a jury on a very personal level,” he says.
“And that means completely putting yourself in the shoes of your client,” says Dollar. “That’s hard to do when your phone is ringing off the hook, emails are streaming in and you are trying to manage staff and administrative issues on a daily basis.” Often trial lawyers don’t take that necessary reflection time. “You have to get away, meditate, be quiet and completely understand every nuance of what your clients went through, what they have suffered and what the impact has been on their lives,” he emphasizes. “Generalities don’t cut it in the courtroom.”
Dollar received his undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas, and his law degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His practice includes tractor-trailer crashes, nursing home abuse, insurance bad faith claims and many other areas of general personal injury. Dollar is far from your typical attorney. His passion for the law and his obsession with finding justice for his clients are obvious from the moment you meet him.
He has a national reputation in the courtroom as one of the most sought-after trial attorneys in the country. Future lawyers at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law have benefited from Dollar’s many years of experience. For more than 20 years, he was an adjunct professor of law, teaching The Art of Trial Advocacy, and is a frequent lecturer on programs of continuing legal education for The Missouri Bar, The University of Missouri-Kansas City, The Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys, and The American Association for Justice.
In 1996, Dollar was the recipient of the Lon O. Hocker Memorial Trial Attorney Award, an honor reserved for attorneys who have demonstrated excellence in trial work in the state of Missouri.
Dollar also served on the 16th Circuit Bar Ethics Committee. This panel reviews complaints brought against other lawyers to determine whether probable cause exists that ethical violations have occurred. The commission serves with the approval of the Supreme Court of Missouri. He was elected by his peers in the Jackson County, Missouri Bar to the Judicial Nominating Commission, responsible for interviewing and recommending to the Missouri Governor a panel of three attorneys to fill the vacant judicial seats.
Dollar is on the executive committee of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys (MATA), an organization devoted to protecting the rights of victims and our civil justice system. He was outspoken in his opposition to tort reform and testified often before the legislature against such measures. In 2018, Dollar was awarded the prestigious, Thomas G. Strong Trial Attorney Award. Finally, he was president of MATA in 2012-2013.
His reputation in the legal community has brought him many accolades from his peers. Martindale-Hubbell is generally regarded as the gold standard for rating attorneys nationally. Martindale-Hubbell seeks peer ratings of professional standards of conduct and ethics, reliability, diligence and other criteria relevant to the discharge of professional responsibilities. Dollar has received an AV rating, which is the highest level of professional excellence and signifies that Dollar has reached the standard of preeminent attorney. A lawyer must be admitted to the bar for 10 years or more to receive an AV rating.
He’s been recognized multiple times as one of the top attorneys in the land by Best Lawyers in America and the Best of the Bar. Dollar was recently named one of the top 100 lawyers in the Missouri-Kansas edition of Super Lawyers magazine. Tim has appeared in jurisdictions throughout the country, including Missouri, Kansas, Michigan, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa and Hawaii -- over 33 states in all.