The POWER List: Timothy M. Aylward

Horn Aylward & Bandy, Kansas City

Few lawyers have the opportunity to set a Missouri Supreme Court precedent that reshapes the practice of medical malpractice. Tim Aylward did so in 1992, and now he’s preparing to defend a new version of the same law.

Aylward was the prevailing lawyer nearly 30 years ago in Adams by and through Adams v. Children’s Mercy Hospital, which affirmed the constitutionality of a cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases that had been in place since 1986.

The legislature then tightened the cap, which the Supreme Court struck down in 2012 as inconsistent with the right to a trial by jury. Lawmakers passed a law in 2015 that they hope will avoid those constitutional infirmities. Earlier this year, the Court of Appeals Western District transferred a case to the Supreme Court that could decide the constitutionality of that law, and once again Aylward is defending the health care provider.

Aylward frequently presents on issues in medical malpractice and other litigation. He earned his law degree in 1982 from Washburn University and practiced with Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin from then until 1999, when he co-founded Horn Aylward & Bandy.

He is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates and the American College of Trial Lawyers.