Robert Wiygul has been an attorney for a long time – 32 years…although you would never know it from his boyish appearance. He’s spent part of that time in Louisiana, part in Colorado, and now he runs the firm’s Ocean Springs, Mississippi office.
Over the course of his career, Robert has accumulated a lot of honors that mean a great deal to lawyers: editor of the law review; a clerkship with a federal appeals court; a prestigious fellowship in natural resources law at the University of Colorado; and awards from environmental groups.
If you are a person that really wants to see a resume, you can see Robert’s here.
When Robert talks about what he’s done in that 32 years, what he talks about are people, places and species. To that end, he’s helped save some of the most endangered species on the planet; stopped corporate polluters; protected some of the most beautiful public lands in the country; and helped injured workers get justice. He’s done it in tiny courtrooms in country towns, and big ones in some of the biggest cities in the country.
If you ask Robert about his favorite case, he won’t pick one. He’ll probably tell you about 5 or 6.
Some you might expect to be at the top of the list. The 5-year-long case for the Sierra Club against a big utility that wound up shutting down polluting power plants, and got $15 million to help low income rate payers and put solar power in schools. (Thank you, Sierra Club).
Some of you might not. The case for an injured worker named Larry that he tried for three days of a rainy Mardi Gras week in Greenville, Mississippi. The jury verdict wasn’t the biggest ever – $350,000 – but it put Larry back on his feet, and got his family into a house, and let them give their old trailer to Larry’s mom. Maybe not a big case for some people, but the kind of thing you really want on your resume.
Unless you have a lot of time, don’t get Robert started on his family, his dogs, fishing, or sailing. His wife Julia is a consultant and advocate for public education, and his two teenage daughters are smart, funny and occasionally aggravating. He says they are also beautiful, but that is their mother’s department. The two dogs, Jinx and Maisie, are both “genetically complex” in their own right, with lineage lines proven here. In whatever spare time he can afford, you can find him fishing the marshes of Mississippi and Louisiana, or sailing his two beach catamarans.
Robert knows what works and what doesn’t, and there’s nothing he loves better than figuring out how to level the playing field for the people and environmental groups he serves.