Michael A. Worel

One of the most highly recognized referral attorneys sought by colleagues across the country, Mr. Worel, along with co-counsels, has amassed many successful major verdicts, including a record $11.2 million award in Utah for a medical malpractice case on behalf of a man seriously injured during a non-indicated brain surgery. In 2014, along with co-counsels, he won for his client a record-setting arbitration award in a medical malpractice case regarding a sciatic injury that occurred during a lithotripsy procedure.

With meticulous precision, he evaluates the underlying events of each case. He proceeds with a medical malpractice case only when it has been supported by highly qualified experts. He recognizes that the defendants in the cases he handles rely on the enormous resources of their insurers that will aggressively defend cases even when there is no merit. Despite the financial resources of the insurance companies supporting the defendants, he has continued to achieve success at trial due to his commitment to justice and his clients.

Worel has been the lead attorney in many major cases, including a 2018 jury verdict in Utah for a woman with CO poisoning from a car she purchased, a 2014 jury verdict in Mobile, Alabama, resulting in a $4 million award for a part time farm worker severely injured by an auger while digging post holes. Other major verdicts include $3.1 million in Utah for a wife and two daughters following the death of their husband and father in a trucking accident case and a $1.4 million verdict for a Cache County, Utah, family regarding the wrongful death of their wife and mother due to a surgeon’s negligence during and after a hernia repair.

Licensed to practice in state and federal courts in Utah, Alabama, and Georgia, he obtained a verdict of $1.6 million for a turkey farmer in Moroni, Utah, who suffered a mild traumatic brain injury when he was rear-ended by an 18-wheeler pulling two trailers of milk. At trial, Mr. Worel was able to show that, at the time of the collision, the other driver was on the phone with the home office, which caused him to be distracted while driving.

A few years earlier, in Mobile Alabama, he received a verdict of $20 million for the family of a 32-year-old wife and mother of two who died after receiving improper anesthesia care prior to an elective laparoscopic exploratory surgery.

He is widely recruited to speak before his colleagues on medical malpractice and negligence, and trial practices including the effective tactics for depositions from experts for the plaintiffs as well as handling experts for the defense, and other areas of complex civil litigation.

Board certified as a civil trial specialist by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, he is a long-time regular honoree as among the Best Lawyers in America listing since 2003 in both personal injury and medical malpractice litigation. Within the first few years he moved from Alabama to Utah, he was named by Best Lawyers as Salt Lake City Medical Malpractice Lawyer of the Year (2010) and has been named lawyer of the year in personal injury litigation for Salt Lake City (2015). In 2007 Mr. Worel was named one of 500 Leading Plaintiff’s Lawyers in America in Lawdragon Inc. He is also listed in The Best of the U.S., L.L.C. and Super Lawyers. The American Trial Lawyers Association has voted him one of the top 100 trial lawyers in Utah. Before joining Dewsnup King Olsen Worel Havas, he was a partner at Cunningham Bounds in Mobile, Alabama, one of the southeast U.S. most prominent firms in civil litigation, during a tenure that spanned a quarter of a century.

He also is committed to several prominent community organizations, including serving on the boards of directors for Big Brothers, Big Sisters; YMCA; Victory Health Partners, a nonprofit health clinic for uninsured patients, the Egyptian Theatre in Park City, Utah, and KPCW-FM, a local nonprofit radio station.