Gabe, Caryl Jacobs

The Law Office of Michelle M. Funkenbusch is centrally located at Watson and Laclede Station Roads in suburban St. Louis County, Missouri making it easy and safe for clients to visit. I regularly serve clients in St. Louis City and County, Jefferson County, St. Charles County, Lincoln County, Warren County, Marion County, and Franklin County.

Why hire me as your personal injury lawyer? Here are some representative verdicts and settlements:

• Local Trial Counsel on Walter Huggins v. Fed Ex Ground which was tried in December 2010 in federal court in St. Louis, Missouri. Won $1,050,000.00.
• Trial Counsel on railroad crossing collision case representing truck driver and trucking company against Union Pacific railroad. Won $600,000.00 plus verdict after two week trial in St. Louis City.
• Settlement prior to filing suit for $500,000.00 against railroad company for a dangerous railroad crossing where a minister was hit by a train at an unprotected and dangerous crossing.
• Worker's Compensation: In Spring 2010, won award for employee of trucking company who sustained multiple injuries from a fall and who was denied medical treatment. Michelle was able to prove the work-related accident was the prevailing factor in causing the employee to sustain his injuries and won an award requiring the employer to pay all outstanding medical bills, to pay over $47,000.00 in back temporary total disability weekly benefits, and an order requiring the employer to provide medical treatment and temporary benefits in the future. The permanent disability case is still pending subject to the client completing treatment.
• Negotiated confidential settlement of a discrimination claim an employee had against her employer who refused to give her reasonable accommodations to assist her in her job when she was recovering from a breast cancer operation.

Volunteer Work for the Community and Profession: 

Michelle has made volunteering to her profession and community a primary focus in her time outside of work. She is currently the Immediate Past President of the Board of Directors for Payback,Inc., a non-profit that helps break the cycle of juvenile delinquency by putting juveniles to work at non-profits to work off their debt to their victims. See http://www.paybackinc.org/ Through fundraisers, PayBack actually pays back the victims of juvenile crimes based on the number of hours the teenagers work at the non-profits. In 2011, Michelle helped raise over $25,000.00 for the charity with an underground run in a cave called the Sandmine Challenge: http://www.sandminechallenge.com/. During her tenure, four yearly fundraising events have been initiated that have increased the event revenue source for the charity by over 75%.

She has been an avid volunteer for her professional bar associations since entering practice over 13 years ago. She was elected by other lawyers and served four years on the highest law-related board in the state, the Missouri Bar Board of Governor's YLS council. On the Board, she served as the Chairperson of the Promotional/Marketing Task Force and was Co-Chairperson of the Annual Meeting Committee. Funkenbusch has been a regular volunteer for the Law Day Picture Contest, Read Across America, We the People. . . The Citizens and the Constitution program, and is a member of Friends of Habitat for Humanity.

In the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, she served as Vice-Chair of the Trial Committee and was a Teen "Speak Out" Coach for East St. Louis High School, where she helped teach teenagers who to speak up in an intelligent manner about issues in their community.

Michelle has also spent hundreds of hours as a volunteer judge for the Missouri High School Mock Trial Competition, the Intercollegiate Mock Trial Tournament, as an assistant to the St. Louis University Law School National Trial Team, and, most recently, as a judge for the BAMSL Trial College for new lawyers who have not tried a case.

Funkenbusch also served several years on the Executive Committee of the Lawyer's Association of St. Louis, the local trial bar. She is well known for her humorous side in this organization, as seen in the Lawyer's Association Gridiron Show in which she had been a chorus member and writer/contributor for six years.

As a former defense lawyer, she was an active member of TIDA, Missouri Motor Carriers Ass., MODL, and the Defense Research Institute and she authored the Missouri chapter in the DRI Compendium on Spoliation of Evidence. She now uses that experience to fight for the rights of individuals as a plaintiff's lawyer.

Most recently, Funkenbusch was selected as a member to the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys (MATA) which lobbies for the rights of injury victims in the State of Missouri.