Our Practice

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An avid explorer of uncharted legal territory, Gregory Leyh finds novel approaches that help

consumers fight powerful interests. During a 30-year legal career, Leyh has held deep-pocketed

defendants responsible when their actions negatively impact clients’ homes, health, and

livelihoods.

Leyh is undaunted in the face of formidable opponents and difficult legal issues. He discovers

fresh strategies that take down adversaries and achieve justice for clients. At Gregory Leyh, P.C,

Leyh often challenges what has been considered acceptable and develops new and effective

legal arguments that secure results.

Throughout his career, Leyh has harbored a strong desire to assist consumers with complex and

previously insurmountable legal battles. A 1997 landmark settlement in Leyh’s case on behalf of

a smoker was the first time Big Tobacco paid for damages caused by smoking. Leyh then

litigated eight other tobacco cases using ground-breaking legal theories, paving the way for

many more victories.

Leyh successfully represented dairy farmers across the Upper Midwest against sellers of

diseased animals. After the Great Recession, he started taking powerful banks like Wells Fargo

to task for mistreating homeowners, fighting about 120 contested foreclosure cases that helped

many individuals and families stay in their homes. Leyh also focuses on eviction defense to

prevent slumlords from wrongfully evicting tenants, and he has deep experience in class action

litigation and pursuing appeals.

When taking a case, Leyh doesn’t get intimidated by steep legal challenges and large teams of

tough and talented opponents. He keeps the big picture in mind. “I’ve learned that one of the

satisfactions of doing what I do is that you can really change someone’s life for the better. Not

every case changes your client’s life, but when they do, they are very special,” Leyh says. “I

represent a lot of low-income people who are living week to week. If you can impact their life in

a positive way, it’s a great thing.”

These efforts have paved the way for much success, mostly recently for homeowners whose

banks wrongfully foreclosed upon them and tenants whose landlords ignored squalid living

conditions. In one of Leyh’s recent class actions, a judge in Kansas City awarded nearly $73

million in damages and fees for “outrageous and reprehensible” living conditions. In addition,

Leyh previously won the largest wrongful foreclosure judgment in Missouri history.

Leyh took an unusual path to the law, first earning a Ph.D. in political science from the

University of Minnesota and working for six years as a political science professor at Illinois

Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois. Seeking to solve complicated, real-world

problems, Leyh completed an accelerated program at Indiana University School of Law and

graduated magna cum laude. He served as a clerk for the United States Court of Appeals in the

Sixth Circuit before started work in civil litigation. Leyh started his own firm in 1999, growing

the practice to include two other lawyers.

As a former professor, Leyh takes a scholarly approach to preparing litigation. He pores over

law review articles, journals, books, regulatory guidance, and other sources to develop

expertise, synthesizing this information into new arguments for legal relief. Often, he retains

authors, scholars, and veteran lawyers to serve as advisors and expert witnesses at trial. “They

may help me refine what I’m driving at,” Leyh says. “I allow myself to be educated and steered

by people who intimately know this area of the law.”

The courtroom isn’t the only place Leyh hones his penchant for exploring and overcoming

obstacles. An enthusiastic outdoorsman and hiker, Leyh voyaged through the rugged Boundary

Waters of northern Minnesota, scaled numerous mountains in Colorado, and conquered Half

Dome at Yosemite National Park. Just like at work, Leyh enjoys challenging himself, finding his

way out of difficult situations, and forging new paths.

Leyh has spent his career developing legal remedies for consumers who are underdogs against

powerful and immovable interests. Intrigued by the situation and the challenge, Leyh gets to

work exploring new legal approaches, winning strategies, and a way to help.

For 18 years, Andrea Knernschield has been deep in the fight for consumers’ rights at Gregory

Leyh, P.C. She started her career as a paralegal and key player at the firm as it successfully

pursued complex class action litigation, foreclosure defense, and consumer protection cases.

Ultimately, Knernschield decided that she wanted to stand up in court for clients, too.

While balancing full-time work at the firm and her family with two young sons, Knernschield

attended law school at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. She intended to participate in a

five-year part-time program but got motivated to finish sooner, going full-time instead. She

earned her juris doctor degree in three and a half years while still working full-time.

Knernschield thoroughly enjoys getting to know her clients and learning their stories, exploring

how she can help, and pursuing justice when they have been wronged. She digs into their

concerns and advocates for them with creditors, landlords, banks, and other corporations. All

the while, Knernschield maintains steady communication with clients and provides them with

honest assessments of their cases.

Giving people a voice is her top priority. “Our clients often feel defeated and humiliated and

embarrassed by the time they get to our office,” Knernschield says. “They feel like they haven’t

had the opportunity to be heard in their disputes and how the stress is affecting their health,

their family, and their relationships.”

This drives Knernschield to go above and beyond for clients, traveling across Missouri and

Kansas to meet with them, learn about their situations, and develop their cases for court. She

strongly believes in the Leyh firm’s mission to protect consumers and keep clients in their

homes when they face foreclosure. She played a major role in the firm’s recent victory—the

largest judgment ever obtained on behalf of tenants in Missouri history—and that only whetted

her appetite to do more for clients.

One of Knernschield’s special skills is her enthusiasm for digging through the mountains of

records and documents that opposing counsel submits. A double major in classical antiquities

and languages at the University of Kansas, Knernschield has a passion for archaeology and

unearthing artifacts that she applies to her legal investigations and discovery. Then she pulls

together the facts of the matter, analyzes the law and legal issues, and builds a case that allows

clients to have their day in court and pursue a positive outcome.

“My favorite part about being a lawyer is often being the last resort for clients, taking that role

seriously, and litigating as best as I can,” Knernschield says.

In her work, she strives to be her clients’ trusted counselor through all stages of their case.

Knernschield views it as a privilege to fight with them and for them against large, well-funded

institutions, acknowledging that it’s stressful, time-consuming, risky, and expensive for clients.

“I am honest with them about the law and how it might impact their lives,” Knernschield adds.

“We’re a small, dedicated law firm and we advocate on behalf of people who really need

assistance from advocates in consumer law. I’m motivated by their stories.”

Nick Leyh gets fired up when he hears about renters living in squalid conditions, with landlords

who refuse to fix major problems. He is equally moved when creditors wrongly foreclose on

homeowners. Having the opportunity to fight for people in these situations propelled him to

become a lawyer.

“I wanted a career where I could serve other people,” Leyh says. “It’s more rewarding and I’m

more engaged in my work if it’s going to the benefit of others.”

Leyh joined the Gregory Leyh, P.C., law firm in 2020. He sought to contribute to its civil

litigation efforts to protect the rights of consumers, especially those facing housing challenges.

Leyh previously worked at a different civil litigation law firm in Kansas City. He left for the Leyh

firm to focus more intently on advocating for Missouri consumers.

Initially, Leyh had not intended to become a lawyer. He majored in English and classics with a

minor in critical theory at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. After college, he moved to

Washington, D.C., for a communications job at the United States Interagency Council on

Homelessness. The independent federal agency was a good fit for Leyh, who liked supporting

its work to end homelessness.

Some of Leyh’s favorite intellectual pursuits involve research, the close reading of text, and

analyzing the written word. It’s something he realized he could do as a lawyer while also

coming to the aid of others. Analyzing legal writings and laws is a skill Leyh further honed at the

University of Missouri School of Law in Columbia, where he wrote and edited for the Journal of

Dispute Resolution.

Coming out of law school, Leyh focused on civil litigation to make a difference for people

experiencing seemingly insurmountable challenges. “I’ve always been interested in consumer

rights advocacy, especially for those who are financially burdened in a way that makes it hard

for them to think they can afford an attorney,” Leyh says. “Finding ways to help people who

have sometimes been severely wronged is rewarding.”

When working with clients, Leyh listens to their stories, determines how he can help, and then

guides them through the legal process. The three attorneys at Gregory Leyh, P.C., often work

together on cases, a structure Nick Leyh finds beneficial to clients and allows the firm to build

strong cases.

Even more satisfying is when landlords notice the firm’s results and get motivated to make

changes instead of defending themselves in court. “I can see that these lawsuits are having an

effect,” Leyh says. “I find that motivating.”