Papantonio is listed in the publications, Best Lawyers in America and Leading American Attorney. He is also a Fellow in the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the International Society of Barristers. Both organizations invite only 500 trial lawyers throughout America to participate as members. Papantonio is also a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the American Association for Justice (formerly the ATLA), the Southern Trial Lawyers Association, and the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers where he served on the Board of Directors for five years. He is a Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer who has authored and co-authored instructional articles on handling complex litigation for trial lawyers.

Papantonio also is the founder of the cutting edge continuing legal education seminar organization, Mass Torts Made Perfect, which has and continues to train thousands of lawyers in how to better their legal practice. The organization has hosted speakers such as former President Bill Clinton, James Carville, Johnnie Cochran, Bob Woodward, Elliot Spitzer, Jack Kemp, Arianna Huffington, Dick Morris, and Paul Begala.

An author of four motivational books for lawyers, Papantonio regularly lectures at trial seminars throughout America. He is also the co-author of Air America: The Playbook, listed by The New York Times as a Political Best Seller.

In 1998, Mike Papantonio teamed with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Hudson Riverkeepers and Water Keeper Alliance, to establish a Riverkeepers program in Northwest Florida, known as the Emerald Coastkeepers Inc., a full-time organization that serves the community as a public advocate for the waterways of Northwest Florida. Coastkeepers and Riverkeepers are reputed for their willingness to take polluters to court. In 2001, Mike filed two lawsuits against polluters, which lead to a $70 million settlement. In 2007, as lead trial counsel in the environmental class action case of Perrine v. Dupont, Mike received a jury verdict award for a West Virginia community with an estimated value in excess of $380 million.

Mike Papantonio and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. also host Ring of Fire, a nationally syndicated radio show, which airs on the Air America Radio network, and from which Papantonio is featured in the movie, Jesus Camp, which was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.While hosting Ring of Fire Radio, Papantonio has conducted hundreds of recorded interviews with guests such as Dan Rather, Helen Thomas, Howard Zinn, Arianna Huffington, Mary Chapin Carpenter, David Crosby, Merle Haggard, Morgan Spurlock, John Edwards, Bill Moyers, Rickie Lee Jones, Alanis Morissette, Pete Seeger, Jackson Browne, Chuck D from Public Enemy, Henry Rollins, Ted Sorensen, and Elizabeth Kucinich, to name a few.