• May 14, 2025
  • KWCH TV
  • -
  • by Matt Heilman

WICHITA – The Wichita Bar Association honored well-known criminal defense attorney Dan Monnat with its 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award. Monnat’s decades-long career includes nearly 50 years practicing law in Kansas and Nebraska.

The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes a bar member “whose sustained superior performance and accomplishments have brought credit and recognition to the profession,” the Wichita Bar Association explained.

A news release announcing Monnat’s recognition from the Wichita Bar Association said he’s “earned a national reputation for his staunch defense of high-profile, though sometimes unpopular, people, companies, and causes.”

“The WBA represents more than 1,000 lawyers in the Wichita area, and I am beyond humbled by their selection of me to receive this honor,” Monnat said. “We have an incredibly dedicated field of attorneys in Wichita, and I am always cognizant of the enormous debt I owe to my mentors and allies in the bar. I am grateful for my WBA colleagues and know that we will always stand together, bound by our passion for this profession and our love of the Constitution.”

Monnat, recognized nationally for his work in several cases, includes the successful defense of a man who’d been wrongfully accused of being the BTK serial killer before Dennis Rader’s arrest in 2005.

In 1985, Monnat and legal scholar Stan Spurrier founded the Wichita law firm, Monnat & Spurrier. Through his years in Wichita, accolades for Monnat have included recognition of being named among the Best Lawyers in America for more than 35 years.

“A member of the [Wichita Bar Association] for 49 years, Dan has taught numerous CLE seminars for the organization on such topics as illegal search and seizure, drug detection dogs, trial techniques, and federal sentencing. He has also served on its Criminal Practice Committee,” the news release announcing his Lifetime Achievement Award explained.

  • May 14, 2025
  • KSNW TV
  • -
  • by Barry Owens

WICHITA — Criminal defense attorney Dan Monnat has been awarded the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award by the Wichita Bar Association, honoring nearly five decades of legal work that has garnered national attention and shaped high-profile criminal defense in Kansas and beyond.

The award acknowledges sustained excellence in the legal profession, including ethical standards and contributions to justice. Monnat has practiced law in Kansas and Nebraska for nearly 50 years.

“The WBA represents more than 1,000 lawyers in the Wichita area, and I am beyond humbled by their selection of me to receive this honor,” Monnat said in a statement. “We will always stand together, bound by our passion for this profession and our love of the Constitution.”

Known for taking on controversial and high-stakes cases, Monnat has defended clients in matters ranging from murder and sex crime accusations to white-collar crime and constitutional challenges. Some of his most notable cases include:

  • The acquittal of a nationally known late-term abortion provider
  • The defense of a Catholic priest accused of sex crimes
  • The defense of a man wrongfully suspected of being the BTK serial killer
  • The acquittals of a local football coach accused of sexual misconduct
  • The dismissal of charges after two hung juries in a Western Kansas murder case
  • The complete acquittal of a Dodge City man accused of shaken baby murder

Monnat co-founded the Wichita-based law firm Monnat & Spurrier in 1985. Earlier this year, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, where he is a former president.

See full story at KSN.com

  • May 13, 2025

WICHITA – The Wichita Bar Association has honored criminal defense attorney Dan Monnat with its 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award. The award is given to a member whose sustained superior performance and accomplishments have brought credit and recognition to the profession. Notably, the recipient must have demonstrated exemplary ethical standards and high personal values. Monnat, who has practiced in Kansas and Nebraska for nearly 50 years, has earned a national reputation for his staunch defense of high-profile – though sometimes unpopular – people, companies, and causes.

“The WBA represents more than 1,000 lawyers in the Wichita area, and I am beyond humbled by their selection of me to receive this honor,” Monnat said. “We have an incredibly dedicated field of attorneys in Wichita, and I am always cognizant of the enormous debt I owe to my mentors and allies in the bar. I am grateful for my WBA colleagues and know that we will always stand together, bound by our passion for this profession and our love of the Constitution.”

Monnat’s clients over the years have put him in the national spotlight for high-stakes criminal defense, white-collar criminal defense, appellate defense, and bet-the-company litigation. His cases have garnered major media attention, to name a few:

  • The acquittal of an internationally recognized late-term abortion provider
  • His defense of a Catholic priest accused of sex crimes with altar boys
  • The successful defense of an innocent man wrongfully accused of being the notorious serial-killer BTK
  • The acquittals of a celebrated local football coach accused of sex crimes
  • After two hung-juries, along with co-defendant’s counsel, Kurt Kerns, the dismissal of all charges against a Western Kansas couple accused of first-degree murder
  • The complete acquittal of a Dodge City young adult accused of shaken baby first-degree murder and other murder, sex, and white-collar prosecutions.

While defense of clients has been Monnat’s top priority, he has also devoutly defended the legal profession itself, including his 1994 stance where he refused – on ethical, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment grounds – to provide the IRS with the names of individuals who had made cash payments on behalf of Dan’s clients. The IRS filed a federal lawsuit against Dan to compel him to name names. Lauding Dan’s duty as an attorney, United States District Court Judge Patrick Kelly wrote, “it is a relationship different from any other in our society, save for the confessor or physician. In the Court’s view, it is a sacred trust and should not be intruded in.”

A member of the WBA for 49 years, Dan has taught numerous CLE seminars for the organization on such topics as illegal search and seizure, drug detection dogs, trial techniques, and federal sentencing. He has also served on its Criminal Practice Committee.

Monnat is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, the American Board of Criminal Lawyers, the American Bar Foundation, and the Kansas Bar Foundation. He is a Life Member and past Board Member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Monnat also currently sits on the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association’s Board of Editors and is the Criminal Law Chair.

Monnat has been named five times to the Top 10 List of Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers and has been included among the Top 100 Missouri & Kansas attorneys for nearly 20 years. He has also been named among the Best Lawyers in America for more than 35 years. Earlier this year, he also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, of which he was formerly a President.

A cum laude graduate of California State University in San Francisco, Monnat earned a Juris Doctorate from Creighton University School of Law and is a graduate of Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyers College.

Monnat & Spurrier was founded in 1985 by Monnat and legal scholar Stan Spurrier. Today the firm has four lawyers and works in all sectors of criminal defense, white-collar criminal defense, and criminal appeals.

See also Wichita Bar Association Lifetime Achievement Award given for sustained superior performance 


  • May 13, 2025

In June, El Salvador returned Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States to face human smuggling charges.

Who would be willing to step up to represent someone like Mr. Abrego Garcia—or someone accused of murder, violent drug offenses, or other heinous crimes?

Dan Monnat. He has been proudly representing “those people” for the past 40 years.

Dan “broke tradition” when he gave an inspirational acceptance speech after receiving this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Wichita Bar Association. And his brother-in-law caught it on video.

In his remarks, Dan reminded us that it is a privilege to defend both the innocent and the guilty because each of us is better than the worst thing we’ve ever done on our darkest day.

A Fourth Circuit judge recently emphasized how vital it is that even someone accused of being an alleged member of an international terrorist gang receive the “due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order” before being secreted into a cesspit like CECOT.

Dan celebrates how representing “those people”—people like Mr. Abrego Garcia—has helped him realize what a treasure the Bill of Rights, Due Process, and Constitutional Rule of Law are in America.

Watch the moment that Dan reminded a room full of lawyers that they are the foot soldiers of the Constitution.

  • May 12, 2025
  • Wichita Bar Association Bar-O-Meter

The Lifetime Achievement Award is given for sustained superior performance that recognizably sets the recipient apart from peers. The recipient is one whose accomplishments have brought credit and recognition to the profession and who has demonstrated exemplary ethical standards and high personal values.

For almost 50 years, Dan Monnat has been fighting in courtrooms for unpopular people, companies, and causes. In fact, after enduring his teenage years of drumming in rock and roll bands, when Dan’s mother would later see him on TV defending one of his cases, she would exclaim, “Why I remember that kid when he was a respectable, long haired rock and roll musician!”

“Seriously,” says Dan. “Through my entire life, I received unimaginable love, support, and, as you can tell, humor from my mother (Margaret), my father (Adrian), my brother, and my three sisters.”

After high school, Dan moved to San Francisco, playing in bands in the Bay Area, and obtaining a degree in Creative Writing cum laude from California State University. Inspired by an attempt to write a short story about a lawyer, after college he enrolled in the Creighton University School of Law and graduated in 1976.

Dan then found his way back to Wichita and was privileged to begin practicing with criminal defense stalwarts Russell Shultz, Orval Fisher, and another young attorney and now, lifelong friend, Craig Shultz.

A few years later, Stan Spurrier, Dan’s neighbor, former bandmate, and long-time friend, graduated second in his class from Washburn University School of Law. In 1985, Dan and Stan formed Monnat & Spurrier, Chartered (“M&S”) and received much of the additional guidance and mentorship they needed from senior WBA members like Jack Focht, Charlie Anderson, Warner Eisenbise, and contemporaries Dave Rapp, Steve Robison, Cyd Gilman, John Vetter, and Kurt Kerns.

But, in the late-’80s, Dan and M&S received an infusion of incredible energy, intelligence and, literally, Grace.

Kung Fu Master Grace Wu had been teaching high school in Shanghai, China. When the opportunity arose to immigrate to the United States, she seized it, eventually ending up in the Master’s degree program at Wichita State University and teaching Chinese Martial arts. Grace and Dan were married in 1992. By that time, however, Grace had already begun to shape Dan’s successes in the courtroom by contributing her natural and cultural strategic thinking, wisdom, and elegant kindness. Grace has participated in Dan’s jury trials for the last 33 years. She has also served for the last 26 years as the Office Manager of M&S while continuing to teach at her school.

While Dan is grateful for the WBA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, he recognizes that whatever he has achieved “was only with the support of countless generous and tolerant others.” In 2000, Dan obtained his degree from the Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College. Dan attended his first seminar sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) in 1979 and is still an active student, member, and instructor. In 1994, when Dan espoused the NACDL’s stance refusing, on Fifth Amendment grounds, to provide the IRS with the names of individuals making cash payments on behalf of clients, the NACDL Strike Force jumped to Dan’s defense, eliciting federal Judge Kelly’s endorsement that a lawyer’s duty “is a sacred trust and should not be intruded in.”

Cognizant of his enormous debt to his mentors and allies, Dan has always tried to serve the bar; particularly, the criminal defense bar. He has contributed to the Wichita Bar and its Criminal Law Committee for 49 years and taught on criminal defense topics at its CLEs. He has done the same as President of the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (KACDL) and nationally, as a Director of NACDL. Dan and Grace have both lectured pro bono for the Kansas Board of Indigent Defense Services (BIDS), the National Defender Services for Criminal Justice Act Attorneys (CJA), and over 30 state criminal defense organizations, presenting their “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Kung Fu Strategies For Trial.”

Over the years, Dan has built a national reputation through a successful array of murder, sex, and white-collar acquittals and dismissals, and his cases have garnered major media attention. Dan’s cases have been covered in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and featured on CBS 48 Hours. He has provided national legal commentary on NBC’s Today Show, CNN, CBS Morning News, CBS 48 Hours, Fox News, and local TV.

Dan is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. Dan was named five times to the Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers® “Top 10” list and listed in Best Lawyers in America® for over 35 years. Through it all, Dan has continued his passion for singing and drumming either with a group of public defenders and other lawyers, named The Crime Doctors, or his current trio of longtime friends, The House Band.

As M&S approaches its 40th anniversary, Dan, Stan, Grace, and the teams at M&S are proud that through the artistry of the law, music, and all other disciplines available to them, they continue to positively transform lives. Together they have been privileged to become a part of many wonderful families as M&S stood by them and their loved ones in some of their darkest hours.

Dan is very grateful to the WBA and its members for this generous award. When asked to comment on his work and the passage of years, Dan simply quotes with reverence the master musician, Louis Armstrong, “And life, whatever came out, has been beautiful to me,  and I love everybody.”

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