November 21, 2025 – As the firm celebrates its 40th Anniversary, Monnat & Spurrier, Chartered, attorneys Dan Monnat and Eli O’Brien have been named to the prestigious list of 2025 Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers. Monnat was honored by Super Lawyers for the 21st consecutive year, while O’Brien earned his 5th straight year of recognition as one of Super Lawyers’ Rising Stars (attorneys under 40).
Only 5 percent of eligible attorneys are selected for the exclusive Super Lawyers list, while only 2.5 percent of eligible attorneys are selected as Rising Stars.
Practicing nearly 50 years, Dan Monnat has built a national reputation for high-stakes criminal defense, white-collar criminal defense, appellate defense, and bet-the-company litigation. His cases have garnered major media attention for the defense and acquittal of late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller; the defense of an innocent man wrongfully accused of being the notorious BTK; and acquittals and exonerations of clients in pseudoscience shaken baby murder and other murder, sex, and white-collar prosecutions.
A graduate of California State University, Monnat earned his Juris Doctorate from Creighton University School of Law and is a graduate of Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyers College.
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, as well as a two-term past president of the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers–who awarded Monnat the first of two Lifetime Achievement Awards he received this year; he received the second from the Wichita Bar Association. Monnat also currently sits on the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association’s Board of Editors and is the Criminal Law Chair.
A frequent national lecturer with NACDL and a KTLA editorial contributor on criminal defense topics, Monnat is the co-author of “Sentencing, Probation, and Collateral Consequences,” a chapter of the Kansas Bar Association’s Kansas Criminal Law Handbook, 5th edition.
Monnat & Spurrier was founded in 1985 by Monnat and legal scholar Stan Spurrier. Today the firm has five lawyers and has earned a reputation for its work in all sectors of criminal defense, white-collar criminal defense, and criminal appeals.
Eli O’Brien has been an associate with the firm since 2017, defending serious felony accusations and DUI/DWI cases across the state.
Prior to joining the firm, O’Brien was a trial attorney with the Sedgwick County Public Defender’s Office. Over the years as a public defender and private practice defense attorney, his jury trials continue to result in multiple acquittals.
A graduate of Washburn University School of Law and the National Criminal Defense College Trial Practice Institute, O’Brien also holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Emporia State University.