Don Downing, Plaintiffs’ Designated Co-Lead and Co-Interim Class Counsel and Liaison Counsel in this action, served for three years as Missouri’s Chief Deputy Attorney General, the state’s top appointed legal officer.  In that capacity, he was the lead lawyer in cases involving consumer protection, antitrust, environmental, and many other areas of law.  Two of his consumer protection cases resulted in the largest two consumer fraud settlements in the state’s history at the time.  Mr. Downing also tried substantial cases in federal and state court, and argued cases at all appellate levels of the state and federal court systems, including the U.S. Supreme Court.  He was also responsible for hiring, training, and supervising more than 170 assistant attorneys general.

Both before and after his service as Chief Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Downing was a litigation partner at one of the region’s largest law firms, serving as the Managing Partner for that firm’s St. Louis office and on its Executive Committee.  Mr. Downing is currently a partner in Gray, Ritter & Graham, P.C. – which is widely regarded as one of the premier plaintiffs’ firms in the region.  It has handled complex litigation for over sixty years.

For over 20 years, Mr. Downing’s private practice has focused on complex commercial and class action litigation.  In the last decade, his practice has concentrated on representing farmers.  He grew up on a farm in southeast Missouri, and still has many relatives and friends who farm in that and surrounding areas.  As a result, Mr. Downing truly has a passion for protecting the interests of farmers.  He has, for example, recovered millions of dollars for hundreds of farmers in Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee in cases involving defective, genetically-modified and conventional cotton seed.  Mr. Downing also has represented 75 Missouri and Arkansas farmers who suffered damage to over 41,700 acres of their crops due to herbicide drift.  He also had the lead role in successfully representing all cotton farmers in Dunklin County, Missouri in a class action against the federal government, which resulted in a multimillion dollar settlement.  (Mr. Downing also litigated a similar case on behalf of 40 farmers in Arkansas).  He successfully defended the interests of farmers before the Missouri Supreme Court in a case that sought to increase tax rates on agricultural property throughout the state.  Mr. Downing also has defended farmers in cases brought by genetically-modified seed producers.  Finally, Mr. Downing currently is representing farmers in several states in antitrust, RICO, and deceptive trade practice claims against seed and technology providers.   

Mr. Downing also has served as lead or co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in other class actions, including separate class actions against AT&T Wireless and Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems – each of which resulted in multimillion dollar settlements.  He currently serves as lead or co-lead in several class actions, including class actions against SBC Communications, Inc., Merck, and BJC Health System (in which the court recently certified a class of over 400,000 uninsured patients) and is also involved in toxic tort class actions against one of the largest lead smelters in the country.  Mr. Downing is listed in Best Lawyers in America, and among the “Best Lawyers in St. Louis” in the area of commercial litigation, and has also been named a “Super Lawyer” by Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers Magazine.

Mr. Downing also has taken a lead role in public interest litigation.  For example, in 2006, he led a team of lawyers that obtained a ruling from the Missouri Supreme Court declaring unconstitutional a Missouri law that required presentation of a photo identification for voting.  Because of his professional accomplishments, service to his law school and community service, Mr. Downing was recently nominated to receive the 2007 MUAA Alumni Award by R. Lawrence Dessum, Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law.  (See Levitt Decl.,  Ex. E) (January 24, 2007 letter from R. Lawrence Dessum, Dean of University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, (reproduced with permission from Dean Dessum) describing Mr. Downing as “epitomiz[ing] the type of outstanding attorney, and human being, that we wish all of our graduates will one day become,” and asserting that “Don Downing’s professional accomplishments are at a level to which all attorneys aspire, but which few actually achieve.”.

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