Brennan Soergel is a trial lawyer based in Louisville, Kentucky. His practice is devoted to civil litigation, with an emphasis on employment and civil rights claims, personal injury, and medical negligence.
Brennan is frequently brought into cases by other attorneys who want experienced trial counsel involved as a case progresses through litigation and approaches a jury trial. Those referrals have become an important part of his practice and have led him to handle a wide range of difficult cases in Kentucky’s state and federal courts.
His trial results include serving as trial counsel in a “dram shop” wrongful death case where an Oldham County jury awarded $10.5 million, the largest civil jury verdict in the county’s history. More recently, in 2025, Brennan tried and obtained a $225,000 jury verdict in a “whistleblower” case on behalf of a nurse who was fired from a local hospital after reporting deficiencies in the hospital’s stroke care that placed patient safety at risk.
His appellate practice is a meaningful part of his work as well. In 2018, he argued Hoffman v. Knoebel before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on behalf of a class of individuals from Southern Indiana whose constitutional rights were violated during their involvement in a drug court diversion program. That argument marked an unusual moment in the court's history: the court opened the session by welcoming Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the bench, and Brennan's case was the first called, making him the first attorney to present oral argument before her. Judge Barrett later became a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Brennan’s approach is grounded in preparation. Some cases need to be resolved early. Others require years of discovery, expert work, motion practice, trial, and appeal. His practice is built around being prepared for either course and taking responsibility for a case from the very beginning to the very end.
Brennan was born and raised in Louisville. He graduated with honors from Saint Xavier High School and earned his undergraduate degree, cum laude, from Western Kentucky University. He received his law degree from the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in 2013.
He lives in Louisville with his wife and two daughters and is active in his local community.
Areas Of Practice
- Employment and Civil Rights Law
- Personal Injury and Medical Negligence
- Commercial and Complex Civil Litigation
- State and Federal Appellate Practice
Bar Admissions
- Kentucky
- U.S. Court of Appeals 6th Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals 7th Circuit
- U.S. District Court Western District of Kentucky
- U.S. District Court Eastern District of Kentucky
- U.S. District Court Southern District of Indiana
Education
- Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky
- J.D. - 2013
- Western Kentucky University
- B.A.
- Honors: cum laude
- Honors: President's List
- Honors: Dean's List
- Major: Political Science, Sociology
- Saint Xavier High School
- Honors graduate
Representative Results
- Klosterman v. Falling Rock Park — $10,528,311.35 jury verdict — Oldham County; Trial counsel in a “dram shop” wrongful death case arising from a quarry opened to the public as a swimming hole, where rampant drinking and partying led to a fatal drunk driving crash. The largest civil jury verdict in Oldham County history.
- Thomas v. Norton Hospitals, Inc. — Jefferson Circuit Court, 2025; $225,000 jury verdict against Norton Brownsboro Hospital on a whistleblower-retaliation claim involving patient-safety reporting.
- McMillen v. Justice & Public Safety Cabinet — Kentucky Board of Claims, 2022; $250,000 award against the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice — the maximum recovery available in the Board of Claims — for a young woman’s death at a juvenile detention center, where staff failed to perform required bed checks the night she suffered a fatal cardiac arrhythmia.
- Horton v. Team Construction, LLC — American Arbitration Association, 2019; $136,515.50 award in a workers’ compensation retaliation case where a construction worker was fired shortly after suffering a work injury his supervisor had instructed him not to report to management.
- Ball v. Laboratory Corporation of America — U.S. District Court, Western District of Kentucky, 2023; $88,227.83 federal jury verdict in a medical malpractice case where a patient, left alone by a phlebotomist during a routine blood draw, fainted and fractured his back.
- Holton Construction, LLC v. Aaecon General Contracting, LLC — Jefferson Circuit Court, 2020; Obtained a defense verdict for a general contractor, along with a $45,000 counterclaim judgment, in a case where a subcontractor claimed it had been underpaid when the shortfall was caused by its own error.
- Nunnally v. Nunnally — Jefferson Circuit Court, 2023; Obtained a directed verdict at the close of the plaintiff’s case defeating claims of undue influence and lack of testamentary capacity in a will-contest case.
