Bob Schuster was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on October 25, 1945, and was raised in Casper, Wyoming. A 1963 graduate of Natrona County High School in Casper, Schuster went on to Yale College where he earned a bachelor's degree in American Studies in 1967. He received his Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Wyoming College of Law in 1970 as valedictorian. While a law student at the University of Wyoming, he undertook a year-long study of damage awards provided to private landowners when the government condemned land through eminent domain proceedings. He concluded that damage awards were inadequate and that they failed to compensate the injured landowners for significant types of losses to which they were entitled. The results of this research were published in two law review articles, "Eminent Domain: Determination of Compensable Interests through Classification of Executory Contracts," 4 Land and Water Review 209 (1969); "The Doctrine of Consequential Loss as Affected by Valuation Formulas," 4 Land and Water Law Review 539 (1969).

After graduating from law school, Schuster was honored as a Ford Urban Law Fellow by the Ford Foundation. The fellowship included summer study at New York University School of Law and the Bureau of the Budget for the City of New York in Manhattan. He then attended Harvard Law School as a Ford Fellow and was awarded a master's degree in law (LL.M.) in 1971. His master's thesis at Harvard, "Discovery: A Study of Procedural Reform," (footnotes) analyzed the development of the pretrial discovery provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Although those rules were intended to bring greater fairness and efficiency to the pretrial stage of litigation, he concluded they disproportionately benefited wealthier and more powerful litigants.

After finishing his legal studies, Schuster returned to Wyoming, was admitted to the Wyoming Bar in 1971, and served as a Deputy County and Prosecuting Attorney in Casper. In 1973, he opened a private law office and worked primarily with personal injury cases, criminal defense, tax law, and oil and gas law. In 1976 he joined Gerry Spence and Ed Moriarity in law practice, and in 1978 they founded the firm of Spence, Moriarity & Schuster. Based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the firm attained national prominence for its work in personal injury cases and criminal defense --- but in the process grew to a firm of 10 partners and two associates. After 24 years as a senior partner in the firm, Schuster left Spence, Moriarity & Schuster in 2002 to open his independent law office in Jackson, which permits him to provide a personalized law practice and to focus on cases that have been of interest to him for some time.

He has been active in civic and community affairs during his legal career of more than three decades. He was president of the Natrona County United Way in 1974 and served on the Board of Trustees of the University of Wyoming from 1985 to 1989. He was a member of the Board of Visitors of the UW College of Arts and Sciences from 1991 to 2000 and was the chair and secretary of the Rhodes Scholarship Wyoming Selection Committee from 1989 to 1998. He formed the Wyoming Public Policy Forum, an economic development policy group, which issued its report "For Wyoming's Future: An Economic Development Plan for the People of Wyoming" in 1998. In 1998 he formed the Wind River Reservation Economic Advisory Council.

Schuster has been active in the Democratic Party for decades. He was a political columnist for the "Casper Star Tribune," Wyoming's statewide newspaper, from 1987 to 1994. Schuster was the Democratic nominee for Wyoming's sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994. Myra Humphries Oppel, architect and webmaster for this web site, is married to Thomas P. Oppel, Schuster's media consultant for the 1994 race. The Oppels own All Points Communications, LLC, and The 379 Group. From 1992 to 2000, Schuster was a member of the Democratic National Committee and served on the Executive Committee of the Wyoming Democratic Party.

He is a member of the Teton County Bar Association, the Wyoming State Bar, the Utah State Bar, the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association, the American Bar Association, and the American Association for Justice. He is a member of the specialized section within the American Association for Justice---the Traumatic Brain Injury Section---in recognition of his interest and achievements in representing clients with brain injuries. He is the recipient of Martindale-Hubbell's highest rating "AV." He has been recognized as one of the outstanding lawyers in America by the well respected publication "Best Lawyers in America." The selection is particularly unique inasmuch as it honors his achievements in two areas of practice---Commercial Litigation as well as Personal Injury Litigation. Based on this experience as a commercial and personal injury attorney, he has been an invited lecturer at various legal and medical conferences over the years to speak on issues related to pretrial discovery practices, medical malpractice cases, class-action lawsuits, and relationships between the legal and medical communities. He is listed in "Who's Who in America," "Who's Who in the World," and "Who's Who in American Law."

Schuster has lived in Jackson since 1978 and has one daughter, Susan, a chef who is currently working in Paris. Her husband, Ian Burrows, was born in England and is a sommelier. Prior to receiving the Grand Diplôme in Pastry and Cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu Paris in 2005, Susan attended school in Jackson and Casper, Wyoming, graduated from high school at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, and received her undergraduate degree in Russian and East European Studies from Yale College. Susan graduated from Georgetown Law Center in Washington, D.C., in May 2003 and holds an MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. In the summers of 2001 and 2002, she worked at The Hague with John Ackerman to defend a civilian before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.