Mr. McFarland, a partner and trial attorney resident in Kutak Rock’s Kansas City office, has a national practice focusing on the litigation of complex commercial/business disputes and engineering-intensive intellectual property (copyright/trademark), product liability, and personal injury actions.  He also has significant experience litigating professional liability actions in the attorney, accountant, engineer/architect, and institutional officer and director context. Mr. McFarland has also performed extensive work in the employment law area, representing educational institutions in employee wrongful discharge and retaliation litigation under both federal and state law, and corporations in non-competition/non-solicitation enforcement actions. He also represents major national automobile financing companies in UCC and franchise law-intensive automobile dealership franchise and secured transaction disputes.      
Mr. McFarland also previously has served as the primary federal contracts and procurement fraud attorney at a major federal military installation comprising some 350,000 civilian and military personnel and their dependents. In that position, Mr. McFarland and his attorney subordinates were responsible for administering all phases of the federal contracting process with regard to all installation goods, services and construction procured by the federal government to support this major federal installation, and defended the federal government against all related contractor claims and protests.
Mr. McFarland is a past recipient of the Missouri/Kansas Super Lawyer designation, and also is the past recipient of the Robert C. Welch Volunteer Attorney Project Award, the most prestigious award given by the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association for attorney pro bono service to the poor and indigent of greater Kansas City. 
Mr. McFarland is admitted to practice in Kansas and Missouri, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Eighth and Tenth Circuits, the U.S. District Courts for the Districts of Kansas, Western District of Missouri, and Colorado, and the Supreme Court of the United States. 

• VW Credit, Inc. v. JK III, Inc. et al.   In this Maryland state court trial, Mr. McFarland obtained judgment successfully recovering approximately $4 million in disputed automobile dealership collateral from the defendant collateral transferee, who had claimed UCC priority in the dealership’s chattel paper accounts over the claims of Mr. McFarland’s secured creditor.  Presentation of this case required extensive knowledge of multiple states’ UCC provisions governing all phases of security interest attachment, perfection, and competing priority. 
• Rugby Building Products, Inc. v. Willbanks et al.  Mr. McFarland obtained a federal jury verdict in excess of $2.2 million in compensatory and punitive damages against three former executives of an international building products corporation who defrauded the company while in positions of great trust and responsibility. Among other fraudulent acts, the defendants diverted corporate funds to speculate for personal profit in commodity futures transactions. Among his other trial responsibilities, Mr. McFarland presented expert testimony instructing the jury on the commodity futures market, the buying and selling of futures contracts, long and short positions in commodity futures contracts and the internal operating characteristics of a commodity futures brokerage account.
• Olathe Mfg., Inc. v. Browning Mfg., Emerson Power Transmission Corp.  This case was a commercial dispute between a tub grinder manufacturer plaintiff and a roller bearing manufacturer defendant arising from the defendant manufacturers sale of defective bearings to plaintiff for incorporation into a line of plaintiff's tub grinders. Mr. McFarland successfully obtained a jury verdict for plaintiff of approximately $1 million arising from defendants breaches of various express and implied warranties, and successfully defended the verdict before the Kansas Supreme Court. This case helped to clarify numerous Kansas UCC provisions addressing issues such as contractual privity, tort recovery for economic loss and the efficacy of contractual disclaimers and damage limitation clauses. 915 P. 2d 86 (Ks. 1996).
• Professional Mortgage Group & Associates, LLC et al. v. Krough et al.  Mr. McFarland's client, a mortgage origination/brokerage company, was victimized by two inside managers through a criminal conspiracy to defraud the company. Mr. McFarland filed a Civil RICO action in federal court, obtaining a preliminary injunction ejecting the defendants from the clients business premises, assets, accounts and clients and forcing them to return certain assets and moneys taken from the companys accounts. Mr. McFarland ultimately obtained a judgment against the defendants in excess of $800,000 and a permanent injunction barring the defendants from interfering with the company. Incident to this representation, Mr. McFarland coordinated extensively with federal and state law enforcement authorities in their criminal investigation of the defendants activities, while simultaneously defending the brokerage in numerous pieces of satellite litigation commenced to address the defendants wrongful acts or omissions while employed with the client. Mr. McFarland also successfully resolved license discipline and renewal issues with state regulatory officials, thereby permitting the brokerage to continue in successful operation.    
• Kindergartners Count, Inc. et al. v. DeMoulin et al.  Mr. McFarland's client was sued in federal court for $4.5 million on claims of copyright infringement, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, unfair competition and tortious interference. Mr. McFarland forced the corporate plaintiff to join a large corporation as a co-defendant with his client on the copyright infringement claims, and then filed multiple defamation counterclaims, joining to those counterclaims, over the plaintiffs opposition, the plaintiffs executive director and founder in his personal capacity. During the case, Mr. McFarland obtained more than $12,000 in monetary sanctions against the plaintiffs executive director for spoliation of evidence. On the eve of trial, Mr. McFarland secured a complete release from the plaintiff for all claims made against his client in the case, without the client having to pay anything. The executive director later settled the defamation counterclaims by paying $100,000 to Mr. McFarland's client. This case was particularly noteworthy because of the extensive pretrial litigation involving complex copyright registration and infringement issues.
• Electrotar Limitada et al. v. Simon-RO Corp.  Mr. McFarland represented Simon-RO Corp., a manufacturer of truck-mounted cranes, against product liability claims brought against it by a Colombian electrical utility and its employee after a Simon-RO crane allegedly failed catastrophically, causing damage to property and extensive bodily injury to the employee. The plaintiffs sought in excess of $5 million from Mr. McFarland's client for their claims. After a two-week trial in Kansas state court, the jury returned a verdict in Simon-ROs favor against the utility and, on the employees claim for personal injury, assessed only 15% fault of Simon-RO, with the balance of fault assessed to plaintiffs. The judgment amount, based upon the 15% allocation of fault, was half of what Simon-RO had offered to settle the case initially.
• Luttrell v. Smith, Sisk and Steamboat Salvage, Inc.  This case was a commercial dispute in federal court over ownership of the sunken steamship Twilight, a side wheel steamship carrying 230 tons of cargo valued in the millions of dollars. Mr. McFarland represented the defendant joint venturers against claims by an excavation contractor that the contractor owned a 50% interest in the Twilight. The case involved extensive pretrial and trial litigation in federal court over application of the Missouri Uniform Partnership Act to the claims of plaintiff. Mr. McFarland also successfully resisted efforts before trial to establish a receivership of the project pending case determination, and to join all interest holders in the project as necessary parties. The case was ultimately settled after trial, with Mr. McFarland's clients receiving the plaintiffs entire interest in the business for a fraction of its fair market value. The Twilight and its contents were successfully salvaged from the Missouri River and are now undergoing extensive artifact stabilization and preservation efforts in anticipation of their display in a museum.