Anton “Tony” Rupert is a trial lawyer and a veteran of approximately 60 trials.  He began his career at a large downtown Oklahoma City law firm, and while there, in addition to defense work, he handled the firm’s “plaintiff side” cases, five times winning plaintiff’s verdicts at trial in excess of $1 million. 

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Tony has also defended large claims, cases with damage claims of such magnitude that they do not normally go to trial; instead, they tend to be settled.  But sometimes they cannot be settled and must be tried.  These cases constitute what the bar calls “bet the company” litigation, and it is a small, select group of attorneys who get trusted to try them.  There are other excellent lawyers in Oklahoma City who are trusted to try these cases, but Tony has been one of them; he has actually gone to trial and won defense verdicts in cases involving $600 million (a case involving the construction of 4 gas processing plants in Texas), $75 million (a high finance dispute between a bank and its customer), and $48 million (a dispute involving the use of oil field chemicals in Norway).  All in all, six times he has been asked to try cases with real damage claims in 8 or 9 figure numbers.  Tony tried them all to verdict and won all of them.  Tony has told younger lawyers that the only thing harder than winning an 8 or 9 figure case at trial is getting trusted to try one. 

 

In 2016, after 30+ years of big firm practice, Tony left with his best lawyer friend at that firm, Geren Steiner, to form their own firm, Rupert & Steiner and to embark on a new adventure:  continuing to handle complex commercial litigation, but representing only the plaintiff, the “little guy,” in personal injury or class action litigation.  Now, at the start of 2019, with the creation of Rupert Steiner & Free, Tony will be working with his long-time friend Phil Free again on Phil’s Intellectual Property Litigation -- Phil and Tony tried (and won) a patent infringement case back in the 1990’s when they were at the same big, downtown firm.

 

It has all been a natural evolution for Tony and his partners, Geren and Phil.  If you have ever met them, you know they share a love of what they do:  strategizing and planning and working to win cases.  All three of them like hard cases; they like solving the puzzle. 

 

In 2007, Tony was named a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers in 2007, an honor bestowed by invitation only, and restricted to approximately 1% of the Bar Association.  He is asked to teach Trial Techniques and Evidence from time to time at either the OU or the OCU Law schools; currently he is teaching both at OCU.  Tony is a graduate of Harvard University (B.A. ’77 magna cum laude) and Stanford Law School (J.D. ’80).

 

Tony is a competitor.  He was a college varsity athlete, and for 10 years has been racing in the sport of senior rowing and routinely races and medals at National and International competitions.  Tony is the father of three sons, Nick, Jake and Ben – two engineers and one current college student, and he has been married to his wife Barbara, a former Legal Aide lawyer, for 33 great years.