Attorney Wins Cases, Top Honors Richard Eymann Becomes State’s Trial Lawyer Of The Year

You couldn’t find anybody hotter in court than Richard Eymann.

The Spokane attorney has a knack for lighting emotional fires under juries. Over the past two years, he has won more than $14 million for grieving clients in personal injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death cases.

That kind of success is why Eymann was picked this month to head the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association, starting next summer.

He also won the prestigious Trial Lawyer of the Year award.

In presenting Eymann with the award Aug. 5, Seattle attorney Tom Chambers called him “a true champion of the poor and powerless against the rich and powerful.”

“It’s a great honor,” Eymann said this week. “I was stunned to receive it because I would have thought dozens of lawyers in this state would have received it before me.”

The 50-year-old Eymann has a year to prepare for his role as president of the 3,400-member trial lawyers’ organization.

He expects to have to fight legislative attempts in Olympia and Washington, D.C., to curb litigation and limit damages in all suits.

“There are difficult times ahead,” said Eymann, a fierce opponent of so-called tort reform.

The son of an Oregon farmer turned politician, Eymann graduated from Gonzaga Law School in 1976.

He is a partner at Feltman, Gebhardt, Eymann & Jones, a downtown firm.

In 1993, Eymann won the biggest wrongful-death purse in Spokane history when a jury awarded $5.5 million to the husband of a nurse who died in a helicopter crash.

Last year, a jury awarded $3.7 million in an automobile rollover case that caused a brain injury.

And in March, Eymann came up big again when a quadriplegic Spokane woman was given $5.2 million after a jury found her surgeon guilty of malpractice.

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