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2025 Power List 100: Don M. Downing, Gray Ritter Graham
Staff Report//December 11, 2025//
Shareholder/Chair, St. Louis
With 43 years of legal practice, Don Downing — chair of the firm’s the board of directors — previously served as deputy attorney general for Missouri from 1993-96, supervising 170 assistant attorneys general and arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Downing has achieved notable success in mass tort and class action litigation representing farmers against biotech companies. His major victories include a $750 million settlement in genetically modified rice litigation, a $1.51 billion settlement in Syngenta corn litigation, and a $400 million settlement in dicamba herbicides litigation.
He serves as co-chair of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and on the state committee for the American College of Trial Lawyers.
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