Chris Spaulding

Chris was born in Muscatine, Iowa on April 4, 1965. His father moved him and his mother to Cedar Falls shortly after his birth to finish up his undergraduate studies at UNI. His mother worked as a beautician and at a grocery store to help his father get through school, along with the GI bill.

His family moved to Des Moines when his father started law school. After graduation from high school, the family moved to the east side of Des Moines. Chris attended Garton Elementary, Goodrell Middle School and graduated from East High School in 1983. Before graduating high school, and in fact while still in grade school, he wanted to be an attorney like his father. He wanted to attend the University of Iowa where he was already a big fan of their football and basketball teams. Chris also wanted to go to law school where his father graduated, Drake University.

After graduating law school, Chris was hired by the Hedberg Law Firm, where he was fortunate to have a number of mentors, who helped him tremendously as a young attorney. In 2000, after nearly ten (10) years at the Hedberg Law Firm, Chris decided to start his own firm. That firm of Berg, Rouse, Spaulding & Schmidt has transitioned to Spaulding & Shaull, which officially opened on February 1, 2019.

Chris is known as an aggressive litigator and advocate for his clients. He has taken up various legal issues that he believed in and made new law in the areas of medical care rights for injured workers in the state of Iowa in the Haverly Decision, and rights of injured workers in Iowa with regard to their entitlement to healing period benefits in the case of Neil v. TMC.

In addition to primarily focusing on personal injury cases and workers’ compensation cases on behalf of individuals, Chris also does civil litigation. In fact, Chris was one of the first lawyers in the State of Iowa to handle workers’ compensation bad faith bases, where he has obtained a number of successful settlements on behalf of his clients. Chris also tried a bad faith case, Buhmeyer v. New Holland, which resulted in a Plaintiff’s verdict and a substantial punitive damage award. Chris was also involved in the Anthony Roland v. Annette Holdings case. Chris handled the workers’ compensation case and was also involved in the bad faith case that resulted in a Polk County verdict in favor of the Plaintiff for both compensatory and punitive damages.

After thirty-one (31) years of practice, Chris still enjoys what he does, and remains passionate about the rights of ordinary Iowans.