Kimberly Benjamin is the founder and managing attorney at the Missouri DWI & Criminal Law Center at the Benjamin Law Firm, LLC, in Belton, Missouri, in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Her expertise is as a trial lawyer, trial consultant, DWI/DUI defense, criminal defense, and personal injury.
Kim’s clients say she is a persistent fighter who never gives up on them. That she listens and helps them through difficult times. She wants to help them get through the cold, heartless criminal justice system and come out as successful as possible. She does not let them plead guilty unless that is in their best interest. She is always looking for a way for them to defend themselves, beat their case, and be successful in life. Many have reached out to her to say Thank You for helping them survive the system and they share their successes with her.
Kim’s passion is to teach other lawyers how to win cases. For many years she has been teaching lawyers across the United States how to try DWI, criminal, and personal injury cases. She is the co-director of the largest DWI seminar in Missouri, and is on the faculty at the Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College and the National College of DUI Defense.
She has extensive trial experience as lead counsel in more than 75 jury trials and over 200 bench trials. For over 10 years she has been assisting other lawyers to prepare for trial by discovering the story, practicing opening, closing, direct and cross examinations. Many lawyers reach out to her for her expertise in trial skills due to her successes because in over 14 years, she has not lost a jury trial.
In addition, Kim is a frequent lecturer at seminars for The Missouri Bar, Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (MACDL), local DWI Defense organizations, Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association, Missouri State Public Defender System, and the National College of DUI Defense.
Kim has served as the President and Board Member of MACDL and is the Library & Technology Chair of the Cass County Bar Association. In 2016 the Governor of Missouri appointed Kim to be on the Missouri Ethics Commission and it is her honor to serve her community in this appointment. Kim also volunteers her time to assist teenagers in the Cass County Youth Court program, where high school students act as lawyers and judges to handle minor juvenile law violations in the community.
In 2015 Kim received the Atticus Finch Award from MACDL for defending unpopular clients or causes and in 2018 she received the Missouri Lawyer’s Weekly Women’s Justice Award as an outstanding criminal trial lawyer.
After getting her bachelors from the University of Missouri in Columbia she attended law school in Washington, DC, at the George Washington University. First working at the Pentagon for the US Department of Defense and the Federal Communications Commission, she then returned to Missouri and worked for the Missouri State Public Defender System where she was promoted to manage an office as the District Defender. After 6 years as a public defender, Kim returned to the Kansas City area to her hometown of Harrisonville, Missouri in 2002 and opened her own law practice. In 2011, the law firm was relocated to Belton, Missouri, where the firm focuses on civil and criminal law.