There’s no mistaking that attorney Bobby Bourlon is a country boy with deep Texas roots. Aside from the suspenders and bolo tie, he raises horses and builds muscle cars. Photo Carrie Robertson Meyer/Third Coast Photo
Attorney Bobby Bourlon walked the path to his legal career on arthritic legs that led him first to two hip replacements and then to a career change. As a manager at J.C. Penney’s, he knew his health concerns would only be exacerbated if he remained in that position. The job meant a lot of time on his feet. He responded by taking a career path he had always wanted to follow.
“My mother told me that when I was 8 years old, I told her I wanted to be a lawyer,” he said. “In the University of Texas marketing program, getting my bachelor’s degree, I excelled in business law courses. I always wanted to do that.”
His professor at the time strongly encouraged him to go into law, but once he graduated, he got an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“I got interviewed by Penney’s, and they offered me more money than I had ever seen,” he said with a chuckle. “It was $17,500 a year.”
Not pleased, his professor made him sign a contract that, within five years, he would enroll in law school. A wife and kids intervened in the meantime. It would be 12 years before he called his professor and told her he was finally honoring the contract: He had been accepted to the South Texas College of Law in Houston.
“I got a great source of pride in fulfilling my contract with her and fulfilling my dream of becoming a lawyer,” he said. “I got to call her back three years later and tell her I had done well in law school and had graduated with a law degree.”
Those three years were hard, though. He made the school’s law journal the final two years and graduated with honors, but he almost dropped out the first year.
“He’d been in school only about two weeks, and he calls me crying, saying he can’t do it, it’s too hard,” recalled his wife, Gracie Bourlon. “I told him on the phone, you’re not coming home unless you come home with a law degree. And if you do come home without one, you’re going to have to start selling cars or flipping burgers to make money. He never complained again.”
Bobby remembers it a little differently. He says he had his attack of nerves sitting with her on the front porch of her parent’s house in Alice. She told him he could quit, it was alright with her, he said. The rest of the story matches hers identically.
They both recall the hardships well. They sold everything they owned, and Gracie and the three children, ages 6, 4, and 2, moved in with her parents. Bobby commuted from Houston each weekend — a four-hour drive. Although he had three-day weekends between classes, he worked at a law firm in Alice on those days, while also studying and writing papers.
“I don’t know how I survived it,” he said. “I worked a lot of nervous energy off.”
After graduating, he went to work for a large firm that specialized in defending big insurance companies.
“I had some tremendous mentors there,” he said. “They taught me the practice of law.”
From there, he went to a boutique law firm. After a few more years, he branched out on his own. He practiced in Corpus Christi about six years, then did a short stint in Alice. He came back to the Sparkling City by the Sea in 2009 and plans to stay.
“Corpus has been good to me,” he said. “I enjoy practicing here.”
Although still struggling with health issues, Bourlon’s zest for life includes a farm where he raises horses and an automotive business in Alice, where his son and father build and service hot rods, as well as sell cars. More important, however, he focuses his work life on helping “the hardworking men and women in the Nueces County area.”
His practice is primarily in family, criminal, probate and contract law.
“I do everything that the common, hardworking guys out there have to deal with on a daily basis,” he said. “I get great satisfaction out of helping people.”
Which is why he recently embarked on a five-year training program to become a deacon in his parish at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Alice.
Becoming a deacon in the Catholic church involves intense training. Deacons assist the priest in whatever needs to be done to serve the community.
“The deaconship is complimentary to my vocation,” Bourlon said. “The church believes that God gives individuals a vocation and that serving Him is consistent with continuing your vocation and doing what you can for the church.”
As for taking on this new commitment along with his law firm, Bourlon has an easy answer.
“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” he said.
