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