Weber plays key roles across the state

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Ralph Weber’s career includes standout verdicts and educational reform.

But it’s the happiness he’s brought to clients that gives him the most satisfaction, the attorney with Gass Weber Mullins LLC said.

“(Clients) are looking for us to help solve problems,” he said, “and when you can do that in a way that has a dramatic impact on the people you work for, it gives you a tremendous amount of satisfaction.”

In 2012, Weber represented Aqua Finance Inc., Wausau, in a four-week jury trial against its national accounting firm. The $50 million verdict he secured for the company is one of the largest in Wisconsin’s history, Weber said, and ranked No. 2 nationally in 2012 for professional malpractice.

But his pride in the verdict comes, he said, from the “favorable impact that it had for an important Wausau company and its people.”

“The verdict and settlement enabled [Aqua Finance] to return to prosperity,” Weber said, “and it’s thriving again.”

In cases large and small, Weber said he appreciates the breadth of knowledge he gains from each experience. While representing eight school districts in 1987, for example, in the 15-week trial over the desegregation of Milwaukee Public Schools, Weber said he learned how school districts are set up in Wisconsin. Preparing for trial involved exploring decades of history and “the ideas of how children develop, thrive and learn in classrooms.”

Weber helps attorneys in the classroom, as well. In 1997, he created the Trial Science Institute, a jury research and courtroom facility that provides clients and lawyers the ability to conduct mock trials to help with witness preparation and lawyer training.

“To be an effective advocate you have to step outside a client’s case,” Weber said, “and see it with a sense of empathy from the other side’s position; and from the position of a lay person likely to sit on your jury.”

He said he was inspired to create the institute while conducting juror interviews after trials. He learned a jury would focus on a certain piece of evidence that the lawyers on both sides had not appreciated, so he created a facility where attorneys could better prepare.

In her nomination letter, Amelia McCarthy of Gass Weber Mullins called Weber a “legal visionary.” She also noted his deep commitment to giving back to the community through service and charitable contributions, including his work with the Marquette University National Alumni Board and the Marquette University College of Arts & Sciences Alumni Board.