Bio

Dominic Pechota

Dominic is an experienced trial lawyer and he has personally handled trial cases across the country.   His extensive practice and trial experience involves the areas of: medical malpractice, personal injury, railroad law, and defective products.  Dominic takes pride in taking and trying to jury verdict difficult cases.

Dominic has been part of some of the largest verdicts in Iowa in the last seven years. In calendar year 2022 alone, Dominic secured two fully collectible excess policy limit jury verdicts. In July 2022, Dominic secured a jury verdict of $962,500 in Charles City on behalf of an injured Iowan, nearly four times the defendant insured’s State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company’s $250,000 policy limits. State Farm ended up paying the entire verdict with interest. In January 2022, Dominic secured a verdict in Iowa City of $457,476 in a disputed fault motor vehicle accident case for an injured Iowan with a fully healed nonsurgical compression fracture, more than six times State Farm’s top pre-trial offer of $75,000. State Farm paid the entire verdict with interest. In January 2022, Dominic and his law partner Nick Rowley secured a Ten Million Dollar Settlement for the family of a migrant worker engulfed by soybeans at a grain storage facility in Belmond, Iowa as a result of the facility’s failure to comply with OSHA regulations. The surviving clients were all citizens of Mexico.

Dominic has experience representing both those who are injured as well as those who have been sued. His previous experience includes but is not limited to serving as counsel to Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad and Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad in litigation matters throughout Iowa and South Dakota, panel counsel for a medical malpractice insurance carrier representing medical doctors in the defense of medical malpractice claims, and representing Travelers, and its insureds, in the defense of municipal law and excessive force claims (claims filed against cities and police departments). Dominic has previously served as outside counsel for Amera-Seiki Corporation, a CNC manufacturer based in Houston, Texas representing it in litigation matters throughout the United States and Canada. He has tried jury and non-jury cases to conclusion in federal, state, and administrative tribunals throughout Iowa, Wisconsin, and South Dakota representing injured clients.

Dominic earned his bachelor of arts degree at the University of Nebraska – at Lincoln receiving dual degrees in English and Political Science in 2000. He attended law school at the University of Iowa College of Law where he received his Juris Doctorate in 2004 and completed a judicial externship with former federal Chief Judge, the Honorable Ronald E. Longstaff, United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. Mr. Pechota is admitted to practice law in Iowa, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. He has been admitted to practice law upon permission in courts in Arkansas, Missouri, West Virginia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Illinois. Dominic previously served on the board of governors for the Iowa Association of Justice (formerly the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association).

Dominic was born in Martin, South Dakota and he grew up fly-fishing most if not all of the trout streams in and around Spearfish and Rapid City, South Dakota. Dominic worked summers after high school and in college as a laborer mucking, jack hammering and finishing concrete on highways and Interstates throughout South Dakota. In his spare time, Dominic enjoys spending time with family, coaching youth basketball, and fishing with his friend Stan Hagensick on the Mississippi River trying to beat Stan’s Wisconsin state flathead catfish record of 74 pounds and hunting Northern Pike and Walleyes.