Cox, Ronald B.

Our chief attorney, N. Trey Pettlon, was born in Maryville, Missouri on December 25, 1965 and grew up in Clay County. Trey graduated from North Kansas City High School in 1984. After graduating from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1988, Trey went to Washburn University School of Law where he earned a Juris Doctorate in 1991.  Trey is a member of the Johnson County Bar Association, a sustainng member of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association and the Clay County Bar Association as well as a fellow in the Johnson County Bar Foundation.  Trey won the Johnson County Bar Association's prestigious President's Award in 2009. Trey was the third attorney ever to become a lifetime member of the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys.

Trey has extensive trial experience in the area of representing clients who either suffered life-altering personal injuries or wrongful death as well as representing persons accused of committing crimes. In 1997 Trey won the largest wrongful death verdict in Clay County Circuit Court. In 2007 Trey won one of the largest jury verdicts for the year in the State of Missouri. He has won numerous "not guilty" jury verdicts for clients charged with serious crimes in Missouri and Kansas.

Trey has represented clients in jury trials in Missouri and Kansas, and federal court. He has defended clients to juries in Jackson County, Clay County, and Johnson County, Missouri; Johnson County, Kansas, Shawnee County and the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. He has represented clients in important personal injury cases in jury trial in Clay County, Jackson County, and St. Louis County, Missouri as well as Johnson County, Miami County and Wyandotte County, Kansas.

Trey once defended a client being sued for millions. After over a week of jury trial, the Plaintiffs settled against Trey's client for six thousand dollars. Several of the other defendants were found liable by the jury for $12 million dollars each. The case was later featured on NBC's Dateline.

Trey frequently lectures at continuing legal education seminars for other attorneys, masters level education classes and law school classes on topics such as the Fourth Amendment, the criminal justice system, juvenile law, DUI defense, how to defend a client in jury trial and how to run a law practice.

Since leaving the District Attorneys Office in early 1994, Trey has also been appointed to serve as special prosecutor in Clay County, Missouri, where he grew up, on several occasions when the prosecutors office had a conflict of interest. Trey has also been sworn in and served as a District Court Judge Pro Tem several times each year, and has presided over jury trials, giving him a chance to see the process from every side and giving him the invaluable experience of watching other terrific trial attorneys work.  Trey also served as Municipal Judge for the City of Edgerton from 2009 to 2012.

Trey has also been selected as a "Super Lawyer" for several consecutive years. Read more about the process of designating the top attorneys in Kansas and Missouri at http://www.superlawyers.com/. Trey has earned several other prestigious nominations including "top 100 attorneys in Kansas" in 2007. Trey is also very proud of the fact that he was the third-ever Lifetime Member of the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Missouri Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 4-7.4 (2002).

Serious Motor Vehicle Accidents 
Serious Personal Injuries 
Wrongful Death 
Explosions & Burns