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The POWER List: Wm. Dirk Vandever
Staff Report//June 28, 2021//
The Popham Law Firm, Kansas City
Dirk Vandever is the kind of lawyer that other lawyers turn to when they need help.
In 2019, he tried a case originated by other lawyers representing a Platte County man who was badly burned while priming an old car’s carburetor with gasoline. The case resulted in an $8 million verdict, reduced to $6.4 million for comparative fault.
In 2014, he helped reach a $5 million settlement for an infant who suffered traumatic brain injuries in a car crash after an earlier, much smaller settlement fell apart.
In 2008, he won a $4.5 million verdict for a woman whose medical caregivers failed to promptly act on concerns about a mass in her left breast, drastically cutting her chances of surviving cancer.
Vandever earned his law degree in 1974 from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In 1987, at age 37, became the youngest president of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association.
He’s also served as president of the Kansas City Bar Foundation and the American Board of Trial Advocacy and was an attorney member of the 16th Circuit Judicial Commission.
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