The POWER List: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth Attorney at Law, St. Louis 

Erich Vieth was honored as an Influential Appellate Attorney at the Missouri Lawyers Awards in 2011 and in 2013, both partly due to the same consumer-law case. 

Missouri Title had sought to enforce an arbitration clause barring customers from pursuing either a class-action lawsuit or class arbitration. The Missouri Supreme Court in 2010 said the arbitration clause was unconscionable and couldn’t be enforced. 

An intervening U.S. Supreme Court precedent, however prompted Missouri’s high court to reconsider the case in 2012. It reached the same result. The case settled in 2014 for more than $262 million in written-off debt. 

Also in 2012, Vieth played key roles in two other important appellate cases — a Supreme Court case that decided the propriety of the state auditor’s fiscal notes on ballot initiatives, and reversal of a $17 million defense win that allowed for a new trial. Vieth worked on the appellate cases with John Campbell, a fellow alum of the Simon Law Firm and a POWER honoree for commercial and consumer law. 

Vieth has served as chair of the Appellate Practice Committee of The Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis. He earned his law degree in 1981 from Saint Louis University.