Morgan Pilate LLC

What Morgan Pilate LLC does

Morgan Pilate LLC is a boutique criminal-defense law firm founded in 2007 by Melanie Morgan and Cheryl Pilate and headquartered at 926 Cherry Street, Kansas City, Missouri, with a secondary by-appointment office in Telluride, Colorado. The firm practices across five integrated service lines: criminal defense, white-collar crime, government investigations, appellate and post-conviction proceedings, and civil rights litigation, serving individuals — not corporations — who are ensnared in federal or state criminal proceedings, including death-penalty, actual-innocence, and police-misconduct matters. The four-attorney bench (Melanie Morgan, Cheryl Pilate, Lindsay Runnels, and Katy Savrick) is the firm's primary asset; Melanie Morgan is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and multi-year Super Lawyers Top 100 honoree, and Cheryl Pilate's involvement in the case profiled in John Grisham's 'The Innocent Man' and the corresponding Netflix docuseries provides nationally recognized wrongful-conviction credentials.

The firm operates as a traditional professional-services practice with no technology platform, proprietary software, or API surface; all revenue is generated from attorney fees on individual engagements, with no published pricing and no subscription or recurring-revenue component. Go-to-market is entirely reputation-driven — Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, Midwest Innocence Project recognition, peer referrals, and content marketing through the firm's website — rather than sales-and-marketing or paid acquisition. The firm accepts pro-bono innocence and post-conviction work alongside paid engagements, and billing is per-matter based on consultation, case complexity, and practice area.

Client segments are horizontally segmented by legal need: individuals facing criminal investigation or prosecution in federal or state courts (primary), and civil-rights clients whose constitutional rights have been violated in connection with criminal-justice proceedings (secondary). The firm holds no external investment, has no parent company, and operates as an LLC owned by its founding partners; expansion has been measured, limited to the 2025 addition of Katy Savrick and the Telluride satellite office.

Name

Morgan Pilate LLC

Legal name

Morgan Pilate LLC

Website

https://morganpilate.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2007

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Morgan Pilate LLC is a Kansas City-based boutique criminal-defense law firm serving individuals in federal and state criminal proceedings, white-collar matters, government investigations, appeals, and civil rights cases, with a secondary office in Telluride, Colorado.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Kansas City

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations

Revenue model

1. Legal Services Revenue: Morgan Pilate generates revenue through legal fees for criminal defense representation, including federal and state court defense, white-collar crime defense, government investigations, appeals, civil rights cases, and exoneration/actual innocence proceedings. As a boutique law firm, revenue is derived from professional legal services billed to clients.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Morgan Pilate LLC is a boutique law firm that provides criminal defense legal representation to individuals. The firm offers strategic, collaborative, and tenacious advocacy for clients facing criminal charges, with a focus on personalized client service and trial-tested experience.

Product overview

Morgan Pilate LLC is a boutique criminal defense law firm offering a single integrated suite of legal services rather than a modular software platform. The firm's core practice areas—Criminal Defense, White-Collar Crime Defense, Government Investigations, Appellate Practice, and Civil Rights Defense—function as interconnected service lines, with attorneys collaborating across cases involving exoneration, death penalty defense, federal investigations, and complex civil rights matters. The portfolio is unified by the firm's holistic approach to client representation, combining fact-finding, litigation, and advocacy throughout criminal and civil proceedings.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Criminal Defense Representation Legal defense representation for individuals and families facing criminal charges, delivered through strategic, collaborative, and tenacious advocacy by the firm's attorneys.

Quantifiable outcome

• Complete dismissal of federal war crimes charges after exhaustive international investigation and lengthy trial
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• WilmerHale: Major national firm with a leading white-collar defense and investigations practice and significant civil rights and constitutional litigation capability, comparable to Morgan Pilate's federal defense orientation.
• King & Spalding: Global law firm with a substantial government investigations and white-collar defense practice, overlapping with Morgan Pilate's federal defense and government investigations work at the higher end of the market.
• Boies Schiller Flexner: Litigation-focused firm with strong criminal defense, white-collar, and appellate practices, overlapping with Morgan Pilate's high-stakes federal defense and appellate work at a larger scale.
• Jenner & Block: Large firm nationally recognized for its constitutional and civil rights litigation practice alongside a white-collar defense practice, broadly comparable to Morgan Pilate's integrated criminal-civil rights model.
• Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll: Plaintiff-side litigation firm with significant civil rights and constitutional litigation practice, comparable to Morgan Pilate's civil rights defense work though oriented toward plaintiffs rather than defendants.
• Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan: Large international litigation firm with a leading white-collar criminal defense practice; competes with Morgan Pilate on complex federal criminal matters while serving a much broader corporate client base.

Others

• Equal Justice Initiative: Civil rights organization focused on wrongful conviction, death penalty, and criminal justice reform; not a commercial competitor but adjacent in mission and overlapping in innocence and civil rights casework to Morgan Pilate.

Direct peers

• Stris & Maher LLP: Boutique litigation and appellate firm with a strong civil rights and constitutional law practice, comparable to Morgan Pilate's appellate and civil rights defense work and similar in scale and boutique positioning.
• Law Offices of David Rudolf: Boutique criminal defense and wrongful conviction practice specializing in complex, high-profile matters, similar in scale, reputation-driven GTM, and innocence/criminal defense orientation to Morgan Pilate.
• Geragos & Geragos: Prominent boutique criminal defense firm handling high-profile federal and state criminal matters, white-collar defense, and civil rights cases, directly comparable in practice mix and boutique model to Morgan Pilate.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat2 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/morgan-pilate-llc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Morgan Pilate LLC