Firm Profile
Dennis Owens is an appellate attorney in Kansas City, Missouri. He graduated from Rockhurst College (B.A. 1967, science and philosophy) and from the University of Notre Dame Law School (J.D., 1975). He was a law clerk to Chief Justice Robert Seiler of the Missouri Supreme Court.
His articles on appeals have appeared in Litigation, Journal of the Missouri Bar, the A.B.A.'s Appellate Practice Manual, and the A.B.A's new third edition of the Litigation Manual: Special Problems and Appeals (1999). Dennis has served as a faculty member of N.I.T.A.'s Appellate Practice Program. He edited the Missouri Bar's CLE deskbook, Missouri Appellate Practice and Extraordinary Remedies (4th edition, 1998), and he has been Editor-in-Chief since 1988 of the A.B.A.'s quarterly publication, the Appellate Practice Journal. He has presented C.L.E. lectures on appeals for N.I.T.A., the Missouri Bar, the University of Missouri, and local bar associations. He is the author of the Academy's Bibliography for Appellate Attorneys. Mr. Owens is also the author of Chapter Three, "Appellate Court Jurisdiction," and Chapter Twelve, "Scope and Standards of Review" of the Eighth Circuit Appellate Practice Manual (Minnesota State Bar CLE, 2000)
In 1991, he won the case of Diaz-Albertini v. U.S. in the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1997, he was elected to the Board of Governors of the Missouri Bar. He is a Chairman of the Appellate Practice Committee of the National Lawyers Association. He was the first Missouri lawyer elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, in 1993.
Dennis is Of Counsel to DeWitt & Zeldin in Kansas City. He and his wife have four children.