Michael D. Murphy is a 1991 Order of the Coif graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law. While in law school, Mike was the Editor-in-Chief of the Missouri Law Review, and received the Judge Shepard Barclay Prize, awarded annually to the “senior who has attained the highest standing in scholarship and moral leadership.” He was also awarded both the Ike Skelton, Sr. Prize for Excellence in Trial Practice and the American Jurisprudence Award for Trial Practice.

Mike has published a number of articles on trial practice-related subjects and, in 1996, he was awarded the W. Oliver Rasch Award for the outstanding article written for the Journal of the Missouri Bar. In addition, Mike has authored portions of West’s Missouri Practice Series relating to pleading rules for defendants.

Licensed in Missouri, Texas and Colorado, Mike’s practice focuses on the defense of product liability, toxic tort, and medical negligence actions, as well as general personal injury and commercial litigation. Within the past five years, Mike has defended cases in state and federal courts located in Missouri, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Wisconsin, Kentucky and California. Additionally, Mike has significant experience in overseeing and coordinating the nationwide defense of product liability claims. In the past, he has overseen the national defense of silicosis litigation involving claims relating to respiratory protection equipment. That litigation included more than 150 active cases in numerous jurisdictions with several thousand individual plaintiffs.

Representative clients for whom Mike has performed legal work in the recent past include: Textron Inc., Norton Company, Siebe North Inc., U.S. Silica Company, Frito-Lay, Inc., Pizza Hut, USAA, Mine Safety Appliances Company, Austin Powder Company, Texas Instruments, and PepsiCo.

Mike is AV peer review rated by the Martindale-Hubbell peer review rating agency, and is a Fellow in the American Bar Foundation. Additionally, he was recently named a "Missouri-Kansas Super Lawyer," an honor that is reserved to no more than 5% of the lawyers in the bi-state region. Prior to returning to Southeast Missouri and joining Osburn, Hine, Yates & Murphy, L.L.C., Mike was a partner in the Dallas office of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue, the 2002 American Lawyer Litigation Department of the Year.