ICON Honors 2024: Gary Robb

Founding Partner, Robb & Robb, Kansas City

Just like with flights, time is one of the main things that determines the success of an attorney representing plaintiffs in wrongful death lawsuits concerning helicopter crashes, according to such a lawyer.

“As in any plaintiff’s practice, you must select your cases carefully because the one finite thing all of us have is our time.” said Gary Robb, founding partner of Robb & Robb, a Kansas City law firm. “You will put just as much time working on a difficult or hard liability case as you will a strong case, and you’re not doing your client any good if you go to trial and lose.”

Robb became an attorney because he was on the debate team at the University of Missouri- Kansas City and concluded, “If I could make my living doing something like that, it would be great,” he recalls. “I enjoyed the research part of it, the speaking, the argumentation.”

When Robb and his wife, Anita, started the firm in 1984, their focus was cases concerning alleged defects in automotives. Then over the next decade, attorneys started referring them cases concerning aviation accidents, which gradually became their expertise.

Robb represented Kobe Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, in her wrongful death lawsuit after the NBA legend was killed in a 2020 helicopter crash, and Jean Carnahan, wife of Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, in her lawsuit against aircraft parts maker Parker Hannifin after the governor and two others were killed in an accident. (Bryant reached a settlement agreement, and a jury ruled in Carnahan’s favor.)

Robb said to determine whether a potential client has a strong case, the firm takes steps such as obtaining Federal Aviation Administration documents through open records requests; conducting an on-scene investigation of the accident site and if possible, the wreckage; and holding a discussion with experts to determine potential liability.

Robb said he also ensures that the firm prepares for the case to go to trial, even though most wrongful death cases settle before that happens.

“No lawyer should accept a case unless she is willing to go to trial” because “a trial is the leverage — or stick — we have against the insurance companies and the defendants,” Robb said.

The firm represented a flight nurse who was badly burned in a 2015 helicopter crash in a lawsuit against the manufacturer and obtained a $100 million settlement for the client. Afterwards, the federal government passed a law introducing new requirements to improve the safety of fuel systems in helicopters.

“We are very proud to have played a small part in the bringing about of that fuel-safety technology,” Robb said. “That does make us happy.”