PHOTO CREDIT : CHASE CASTOR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES | 2022
By Stephanie Klein | Case Column Contributor
When Tom Porto first stepped into a courtroom, he wasn’t working multi-million-dollar cases. He was standing beside clients who often don’t get the full benefits of “the right to a trial by jury”—some of them with criminal records, all of them facing a justice system that often seemed indifferent to their futures.
Fresh out of law school, he was prepared to give clients the best version of a defense attorney possible. But it didn’t take long for Tom to realize just how low the bar was set for the people he represented.
“I had clients who didn’t even believe I was a real attorney,” he said. “They’d ask me when I was going to become a real lawyer. When you get something for free, you don’t expect anything good.”
Instead of being discouraged by that, he took it as a challenge. “I took so much pride in blowing people’s expectations away,” Tom said. “Especially when they’d been told not to expect anything at all.”
He transferred to the Kansas City office after a few years in Columbia, hoping the move here would allow him to take on more serious cases—and to get in front of juries. But at first, trial opportunities were scarce. Too often, the cases were so severe that clients would accept plea deals before ever reaching a courtroom.
A Trial That Almost Didn’t Happen
One of Tom’s earliest cases in Kansas City was a criminal defense for a man named Hosie—a case that was, from the start, meant to disappear.
Prosecutors had offered Hosie a deal: he was a repeat offender. This time, he was charged with burglary. He’d broken into a barbecue restaurant near the Uptown Theater. When police caught up with him days later, he had ribs in the backseat. And baked beans. And cash from the register. And—most damningly—the restaurant owner’s rental car, which had OnStar and had led police right to him.
Then, when police officers falsely promised him certain protections for a confession, he confessed.
So far, Hosie’s case was a stereotypical plea deal case. He was offered 15 years, but without the deal, Hosie was looking at up to 30.
When Tom walked into court that morning, he had completed all the preparations for a case that was certainly going to trial. But, as he tells it, he looked his client in the eye and gave him the safest advice he had as a 26-year-old lawyer. Take the deal.
Hosie shook his head. “Rack ‘em.”
“And maybe in the moment I didn't understand exactly what he meant by ‘rack em’, but I understood that to mean ‘I have no interest in pleading guilty and we’re going to trial, right now’,” Tom says.
“He had faith in me that I didn’t even have in myself.”
Tom leaned on his instincts and his outrage for people like Hosie—people who are often brushed aside or labeled, seen as too inconsequential to deserve the right to a strong defense.
He also leaned on his knowledge of the person Hosie was. He had a messy history, sure, but many endearing qualities, too. Years later at his funeral, Hosie’s brother would describe him this way:
“Hosie would give you the shirt off his back… just don’t ask him where he got that shirt.”
Tom defended Hosie as a person with a complex nature who didn’t experience a justice system that honored its own rules. He argued that the confession was coerced. That Hosie was found with the items, yes—but that didn’t mean the prosecution could use the confession to prove he’d actually taken them. The jury deliberated for three hours. And when the jury came back, the verdict was clear:
Not guilty.
Hosie cried. So did Tom.
Tom says his emotions that day crystallized what his work would really be about: “blowing past the expectations people have for lawyers”, especially when they’ve been told not to expect anything at all. His experience with Hosie gave him confidence, but it also gave him a new sense of responsibility.
From Public Defense to High-Profile Injury Cases
After years of public defense, Tom transitioned into private law practice. Today, he works with injury trial cases, but he says he dislikes the label “personal injury lawyer.” For Tom, his work is not about a professional category—it’s about the client.
“My job is to give a voice to the voiceless—no matter who I’m up against.”
To Tom, being a trial lawyer isn’t just about filing a case or showing up in court. It’s about using every available tool to make the client whole. That might mean litigation, but it can also mean media, public pressure, or community engagement.
Advocacy, as he sees it, isn’t limited to the courtroom. One of his most well known cases includes a then-five-year-old client named Ariel Young. Her case was filled with power imbalances and public scrutiny. During that time, fighting against Kansas City’s beloved football team in what one New York Times article about the case called “a football mad city” served as a reminder he now values. While facing countless national media inquiries and local upset, Tom viewed his responsibilities as straightforward: standing up for someone who couldn't face their crisis alone, with integrity. It was an unpopular job.
Tom says he has since learned to embrace that kind of pressure, seeing it as a guiding tool for clients facing systemic injustice.
Challenging Stereotypes
Not unlike his former client Hosie, Tom has something to prove.
Bristling at the caricature of the trial lawyer—big bank account, even bigger ego—he says that stereotype isn’t just inaccurate about the actual work he’s supposed to be doing, it’s problematic. It convinces everyday people that skilled legal representation is reserved for the powerful.
Stemming from those early days of criminal defense, Tom believes in the equalizing power of trial law. People who have suffered serious loss—often without the resources or platform to fight back—deserve the same caliber of advocacy as anyone else. Actually, he’d correct me here, saying they deserve it more. And they need a lawyer who knows how to navigate the courtroom with precision, but who also understands the human stakes behind every motion and verdict.
Tom doesn’t talk about winning as much as he talks about staying. Staying with a case when it gets messy. Staying with clients when the facts are uncomfortable or the dynamics are tough. Staying with families when other lawyers might say, "there’s not much we can do".
That commitment has earned him a reputation not just as a skilled litigator, but as the kind of advocate who sees the whole person—not just the case.
For Advocacy That Changes the Outcome
Many large personal injury law firms make simple claims about restoration—assuring potential clients that their worries are over, and that the firm will take it from here.
But working with Tom is a good fit for clients who need representation that empowers them—and makes them the hero of their own story. His practice centers on changing the dynamics, restoring the dignity or resources that rightfully belong to his clients which were taken from them by systems, institutions, or individuals who treated them as insignificant.
With his clients, the mission is simple, but the work isn’t. It’s messy. But somewhere in the messiness of the story of loss lies a person worth discovering through a trial and the full capabilities of the justice system. If that’s the kind of representation you’re looking for, Tom’s your best bet.
