The POWER List: James D. O’Leary

O’Leary, Shelton, Corrigan, Peterson, Dalton & Quillin, St. Louis

A third-generation lawyer, Jim O’Leary has helped found two prominent litigation boutiques in his native St. Louis.

After beginning his career in insurance defense, O’Leary became a founding member of Onder, Shelton, O’Leary & Peterson, along with fellow POWER List honoree Jim Onder. In 2017, he and several other attorneys left to form their current firm.

O’Leary’s wins include a $15.5 million settlement earlier this year for a 3-year-old girl in Oklahoma who suffered a traumatic brain injury when she became entangled in the cord of a window blind. It’s one of several that he and fellow POWER List member Jim Corrigan have won against the window blind industry, including a rare jury verdict last year in Utah that yielded $25 million for the family of 3-year-old strangled by a cord.

O’Leary also was part of a case that led to a $21 million verdict in 2020 in a design-defect suit against a hip-implant system manufacturer, believed to be the largest verdict of its kind in the country.

He is a member of the board of governors for the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys and earned his law degree in 1995 from Saint Louis University.